


ashes, ashes, we all fall down

by suffaru41



Category: Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活 | Re:Zero Starting Life in Another World (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Dehumanization, Depersonalization, Derealization, Dissociation, Hallucinations, Hurt No Comfort, Introspection, Mental Health Issues, Murder, Obsession, Other, Pride/Ayamatsu If, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator, Violent Thoughts, im so sorry for posting this after reason to believe alsdjflsjdf, otherwise there's no main story spoilers!, this fic assumes u know about the pride if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:34:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28450029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suffaru41/pseuds/suffaru41
Summary: Before he set the entire nation aflame, before he orchestrated every bit of his downfall all for her sake, he was still the same teenage boy. He was the defective copy of his father, the high school dropout who was a massive disappointment to his parents, and the abrasive and socially inept idiot who started life in another world from zero.Until death welcomed him for the first time, and with that, came the catalysts for everything: his promise to save “Satella”, and his pride.(Or: the tale of Natsuki Subaru’s descent into madness throughout the first 88 loops of the Pride If.)
Relationships: (horribly one-sided bc this is the pride if we're talking about), Emilia/Natsuki Subaru
Comments: 27
Kudos: 58





	ashes, ashes, we all fall down

**Author's Note:**

> in all seriousness, pls pls do not read this if you're triggered or upset or uncomfortable by the tags regarding this fic's content. I tried my best to tag everything! I will say that there’s also non graphic vomiting in this one though.
> 
> that aside, bear with me for the beginning! I know you’re here for pride if stuff but I swear there’s a point to showing that beginning :)

One blink, and Natsuki Subaru has started life in another world from zero.

His eyes and ears aren’t deceiving him, right? 

The bustling marketplace, the paved cobblestone road, filled to the brim with buildings and structures that scream medieval fantasy. The crowd teems with humanoid beings — he catches sight of lizard tails and cat ears and dog snouts — and even carriages, pulled by dragon-like creatures. 

And with that, the horizon yawns on in the distance as the bright sun shining down on him. 

A direct contrast to the fluorescents of the convenience store, and the near empty street he was about to cross.

Subaru blinks again. Once, twice. 

And then he immediately brightens and hollers out his surprise and cheer.

_I’ve been transported, across the universe, to another world!_

He gets a few odd looks, sure. He definitely looks insane rambling to himself like this. But god. He’s absolutely _ecstatic_. 

His old life was so painfully boring, with next to nothing to look forward to, just one day after another of staring at the same walls and hearing the same nauseating ticking of the clock, turning to fantasy world after fantasy world to ease off boredom and anxiety until it’s — well. Become his reality. Somehow. 

Somewhere. 

This… is a fantasy world, isn’t it? 

Okay, to be honest, maybe this is best left to _fantasy_ and not… whatever situation he’s gotten himself into. He doesn’t know exactly where to go or what to even do, but his mind and his mouth continue to ramble on ahead of him, and he holds onto his groceries because he does need that starting gear after all. 

Even if it _is_ shitty starting gear. 

Still, his head spins out of pure shock, along with what’s probably stupefied euphoria. But he shakes himself out of it, slaps his face, and puts on a bright smile.

This is just like a game, right? This world is so reminiscent of all those isekais he’s consumed, back when he was a high school dropout and a shut-in NEET and a —

Huh. That was just about five or so minutes ago… weird. He used to be normal in every sense of the word, meaningless and listless and a disappointment in more ways than one. 

But here... none of that matters, and he could start anew, right? His scary eyes and his extremely sad social skills could be a bit of an issue, but that’s fine as long as he stays determined with his act. No one would have to know about how lame he truly is, and he could redeem himself here, make a name for himself outside of Natsuki Kenichi’s son.

_Dad… Mom..._

It’s exactly like a larger scale version of his high school debut, so this can’t go all that wrong now that he’s learned from that, right? He has his starting gear, and he should have some sort of special ability, according to the rules of typical isekai, of course. He only really has fiction as a guide to go off of, and he hopes so desperately that it’s exactly like fiction. 

Because why be transported in the first place, out of the billions of people back in his world? He must be special in some way. He has to be. He’d absolutely adore it if he was, and he’s so genre savvy he knows that he just has to be. 

And yet… his genre savviness also tells him that once the main character is transported, there’s no turning back. In his case, that’s no big deal, really. His life didn’t… it didn’t matter at all to anyone, although he was the one who isolated himself first through every stupid action he took, and it’s not like he was planning to accomplish anything, and it’s not like he was ever capable of accomplishing anything either. In the end, he didn’t have anyone who actually loved and cared for him, except —

No. _No._ He’s in a new world, a new life — he has to leave it behind, because he doesn’t have any other choice. If he plays this exactly right, like a game, like a story with him as the main character, all heroism and ideals and charisma and magic, he can at least be content here. As long as he takes his chances and sets his mind to this goal of his, he can be free of all that pervasive boredom and shame and guilt and dissatisfaction.

Maybe he could even find someone who cares about him here. Someone who could even _love_ him. 

He cringes. That’s so _selfish_. But above all, this is an opportunity. It’s all he’s ever wanted and longed for on a silver platter, isn’t it? He can become a whole new person, and remake himself to be better, to be actually worth something, to be so much more than the son of —

_Cough up whatever you got._

He can do this, he can do this, this is just like a game, they’re just like lumps of EXP, right, and he’s the special one here, he can —

Subaru freezes as he spots the glint of twin blades, incredibly sharp and _oh god that would hurt a lot wouldn’t it_ , and then a sadistic smirk paired with matching chuckles coming from behind him.

Shit, _shit_. Dignity be damned, he scrambles onto his hands and knees to beg and —

They drive their feet into his stomach and his ribs, his face smashing against the pavement, heels digging into his cheek as he chokes on his own shouts and misery. 

Curling inward, he squeezes his watery eyes shut. His arms pointlessly cover his head in as if to protect himself. He’s on the verge of begging and pleading, but he manages to swallow it down and continues crying out in pain instead.

This wasn’t how this was supposed to go, was it?

He’s fallen off bridges like an idiot, walked into one too many places he shouldn’t have, found out he’s now illiterate and technically homeless, completely broke as ever, and he doesn’t even have any magical powers yet, and he hasn’t been saved either.

How funny. His eyes sting.

Some blonde-haired girl runs by, shouting back a _Live strong!_ at him before dashing away. He can’t help but shriek in response, indignant and useless, still expecting to be saved. Still expecting that he’s got a brighter future ahead of him, like an idiot.

Along his ribs, sharp pain flares as his head throbs. But he lifts his throbbing head, his vision drifting in and out of focus, and sees a flash of silver hair. 

A… beautiful girl with silver hair. It’s stupid, but he can’t help but think of his own room, both suffocating and comforting, decorated with anime posters and shelves stacked with manga and figurines of girls who looked similar to this… this mysterious, alluring one.

Somehow, she decides not to leave him there. She instead decides to —

He doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t understand her, or anyone else around him, because he never did. 

Why wouldn’t anyone leave behind someone like him? Naturally, he’ll want to scream and wail if ( _once_ ) it happens again, like the crybaby he is, but he justifies it with:

_She... saved me._

_Maybe… maybe I was right._

His sight blurs even further with his tears, but he ends up grinning from ear to ear. 

It’s only half-real.

Smiling, joking around, flirting even — that’s all easy, isn’t it? He’s great at this and more, bouncing off the walls in all his frantic energy even if he sees everyone around him grow disinterested. And uncomfortable. And —

Disgusted.

He _knows_ , do they really think he can’t see it? He’s not that stupid, he knows that they look to him with barely disguised dislike and pity at best, and he just smiles harder with his own barely disguised anxiety. 

Like _that’s_ going to do anything. It’s the wrong move to make, and even though he can’t help but want to strangle himself for doing it, he continues anyway. 

Whether it was throwing out every dumb joke he could think of, or making his best attempts at cross dressing (only to be met with scorn, shame beating him down until he gave up ever doing it again), or learning how to play multiple instruments even with his messy rhythm, or figuring out how to sew even when he kept stabbing his fingers on purpose — 

When is he _not_ doing the wrong thing? 

Because he can’t let himself ever show how much of a train wreck he is. Not only would that be burdening others with his stupid issues, but that would also be showing all the things he hates about —

 _Ugh_ , why is he making this about himself?

He went to help her — _Satella_ — find her insignia. That’s exactly what he should be doing. He knows he’s just a burden on her, a burden who keeps on failing to even help her, but he can’t help but follow in her footsteps. 

She’s overly selfless, overly closed off, and a part of him wants to know more. Because if they’re both the type to waste their entire lives, then maybe, just maybe, they could stick together. 

He’s always wanted this. So, so much. 

_Don’t come in, please just run away as far as you can away from here, I —_

Useless… so useless...

Blood is pooling underneath them, with the sickly smell of the fresh corpses nearby pushing through his half-broken senses, his head fading and collapsing with the sheer shock of the pain and horror. 

Illuminating the two of them like a spotlight, the moonlight shines down on their shattered bodies through the cracks in the ceiling. With his muddled mind and blurred vision, he fixates on Satella beside him, so eerily still that she could already be...

Subaru takes in a rattling, gurgling breath. Using this unreadable emotion welling up deep inside of him, he reaches out to desperately grasp her hand. A last moment of comfort, before they —

“No matter what…” he croaks, weakly squeezing her still fingers. Her soft skin is cold to the touch, but he holds onto this feeling even as he’s falling. 

Why, why is he saying this? He doesn’t know, and yet… it’s the one thing that feels right. 

Even if he’s wasting time as always. 

“I’ll… save you… I promise...”

And when Satella’s hand squeezes back, he musters up a faint smile. There’s a strange stirring at his heart, for this single stranger that he’s spending his last moments with.

But this… can’t be how it ends, right? 

He can’t let it end here. He can’t...

As if awakening from a dream, Subaru opens his eyes. 

The bustling marketplace, carriages drawn by dragon-like creatures and streets teeming with humanoid beings, the bright sun shining down on him.

What happened? How is he… 

His entire body is intact, throbbing with half-remembered pain. Shuddering from head to toe, subsequent fear consumes him, clouding his mind and tightening up his throat.

Where’s… Satella?

Why… why? What’s happening, why is this familiar? How is he… back here? Was he transported back to this place, was that —

The slice at his abdomen, halving his torso, his body falling to the ground as he coughs up blood, _Satella please, Satella run away._ Was that pain real, did that nightmare really happen? Why… why him? _Why_ —

He runs. 

He runs, _runs_ , his heart beating so fast he thinks that it might just burst, only to come to a stop in that same alleyway.

 _Cough up whatever you’ve got_ , the thugs say.

Why is this happening _again?_

With a cry on his lips, he shrieks for them to get out of his way. He covers up his anxieties with his usual bravado, spouting nonsense about nicknaming them Tonchinkan for how annoyingly persistent they’ve been, kicking and punching and scrambling out of there — with all his fear, with all this adrenaline he’s been high on.

He’ll think of this moment later, but now. Now, now, now, his mind keeps trembling with the shock, keeps reeling with whatever the hell is happening —

Satella. He has to find her, she could _die_. 

The insignia comes second. 

But Satella is nowhere in sight. 

Instead, those two corpses he found in the loot house show up again alive and well, introducing themselves as Rom and Felt. He looks at them and can only see flashes of their dead bodies, but he shoves it down. He ignores it, brushes it off as just a dream, a nightmare, as he trades his phone for Satella’s insignia.

Joke around, play up your personality… _forget about it_.

That… couldn’t have really happened, right?

The sooner he gets that insignia, the sooner he gets out of this horrible place, the better. 

Then he can find her and return this to her. Everything… everything will make sense again, everything will be how it’s supposed to be. Everything —

He’s made another grave mistake, he’s really done it this time, he’s doomed them all because he couldn’t shut his _damn mouth_. Worthless… _worthless_. Of fucking course it turned out this way, what good could _ever_ come from him? Why does he still think that things could turn out differently? Why is he always so —

No, no, no, _no_ —

_Die, die, slower and slower and slower, does it hurt? Are you in pain?_

The realization comes as he’s violently spasming in agony, not for the first time, with his own rabid screams and intestines spilling out of him. He’s scared, he’s scared, it hurts, _it hurts so much._ This world is fading, fading, fading, and all Subaru is left with is —

_Oh._

_I’m dead._

How… how is he back here? 

The streets, the marketplace, the alleyway and all of the people in this city, the shining sun.

This time… this time?

The entire world goes dark as soon as he makes it to that appa stand.

_Satella_ , he shrieks as soon as he awakens, as soon as he finds her in the middle of the crowd. He ignores that appa merchant’s kindness — he’s on the verge of coming undone, on the verge of shattering into pieces. Apologies fly from his lips, and his outstretched hand reaches for her in desperation that’s soon to become as familiar as the sight of this place. 

_I failed you, we — we — something horrible happened, I don’t know what to do._

He can’t say it, he can’t let her know any of this. What would she think? Of him and what he’s done — and he can’t just let her suffer. He can’t let her _die_ either. 

Die… _die_ …?

She stills and turns to him with a cold fury. As murmurs break out around them, she snaps at him for calling her that name.

He’s… being left behind again. 

But why… she gave him that name, he accompanied her for the entirety of this day, he’s tried so hard to help her after she helped him and —

Did that... really happen?

Don’t leave. _Please don’t leave._

His frantic, stumbling steps take him to that same alleyway again, too stuck in his stupor to even realize it, until he’s hurled to the ground with a muffled scream. 

This… time. This is the third time he’s made it to this alleyway, the third time he’s encountered Tonchinkan, the third time he’s felt this kind of —

He didn’t achieve _anything_ , he didn’t say goodbye, he’s alone, he’s all alone, he’s going to —

He’s dead. 

He’s dead, he’s dead, _he’s dead_. 

Where is he, where is he, what’s happening? What’s happening to him? Why, _why_ — why is this happening to him? Is there something, _anything_ he’s done to deserve this? He can’t understand, he doesn’t understand. It hurts, it hurts more than anything has ever hurt in all his worthless seventeen years of life, it hurts so much that he can’t take it. How many times has it been so far, how many times has he —

Three. 

It’s been… three times.

He’s _died_ , he was dead, where is he, what is he even supposed to do —

His quivering legs collapse under him. His mouth falls open in a whine, his vision blurred as his head spins, light headed and delirious. All he can hear is:

_I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t, I don’t —_

It was a lie. It was all a _lie_. This was supposed to be his new start. This was —

No. He’s… fine. He’s fine, he’s okay, he’s going to be okay.

Subaru sucks in a breath. And then another. A hand drifts to his stomach as he stumbles to his feet. 

( _A cry wrenches itself from his throat, but he vomits up blood instead, white-hot pain, stabbing and burrowing into his eyes — his_ eyes _— two knives rupturing his back and —)_

His entire body shivers all over with the aftershocks, and yet he’s fine. His chest rises up and down with every breath. His organs and eyes and back are all untouched. 

But his last thoughts were that horrid clarity, past the knives embedded in him and the tears and blood staining the ground, with the realization that this hasn’t been a bad dream. 

This — this is _real._ He’s died, about three times in just half a day, and then time rewinds and no one else remembers except for him. 

That would make him the only one who could change anything… wouldn’t it? 

Then this time travel, triggered upon death, is kind of like his own ability, right? Logically, he shouldn’t be having a temporal power so early, but... he supposes that he’ll call it Return by Death. 

With it, the game he’s playing here is the one where despite everything, he can still save everyone. Even if he doesn’t know if he’ll come back if he dies again, he has another chance now. 

( _But if he runs away, he can live to see another —_ )

No. _No._ He can’t just stand by and let them all die, so there’s no way that he won’t take this opportunity. They all deserve that much, and it’s not like his life matters more than this ability that he’s been given. Especially —

A flash of silver hair, amethyst eyes, and an outstretched hand glowing an icy blue. _I can’t overlook what’s happening here._

Two hands, joined under the moonlight and dripping in dark crimson, grasping each other in their last moments. Dying words, earnest words —

_No matter what, I’ll save you. I promise._

And he’s figured this out too: Satella, if that’s even her name, doesn’t know him anymore. The wonderful girl who rescued him in that alleyway without expecting anything in return, the girl who exchanged conversation with him after he tried to help her find her insignia to pay back a debt, the girl who died beside him in the loot house, and the girl who treated him so coldly as he called after her with the name Satella. 

Whatever bond they had, along with the debt he owed her, are both turned to nothing. It hurts, of course it does; but while those small, happy moments of that first loop are gone, so are those awful futures. 

Even though “Satella” has been the first person to show affection to him in this way in a long, long time.

He has to save them. He has to.

He remembers that woman at the loot house — Elsa Granhiert — and how she licked her lips at the sound of his cries, poisonous words coming from her mouth as he lay there writhing beside Rom and Felt’s corpses, as he tried to scream and his blood and guts spilled out instead. 

If he does nothing now, Satella will die, Felt will die, Rom will die, and he will —

Subaru grits his teeth. He then gathers up his resolve, shoving away the fear threatening to paralyze him, and he briskly makes his way through the street. 

He’s the only one who can do this, even if he has no idea why. Maybe he really is special, but he’s still far, far from being a hero. What kind of hero dies about three times in quick succession, and brings down three other people with him? What kind of hero considers running away just to avoid pain? He’s lame and useless and he’s wasted about three loops that he can’t get back, and he can’t even control his time travelling other than _dying,_ and he doesn’t know if it’ll even work the fourth or fifth or sixth time, but — _but_ —

He freezes when he turns the corner and sees that familiar trio — Tonchinkan. 

Named for just how damn insistent they are on mugging him, all this time.

With his hands clenching and unclenching, irritation and anxiety alike seize at him, but even so, he takes a deep breath and stands his ground.

He still has his determination, doesn’t he? And if he can count on this ability of his — Return by Death — then he can fight, tooth and nail, with everything he’s got. He’ll use the knowledge he gains, and he’ll take control of his fate himself. 

He’s not _completely_ useless.

Past that, the lingering doubt takes the form of nausea, curling beside the organs that he’s lost twice already. 

The catch to this whole goal of his is that he’s just a seventeen year-old who’s spent almost his entire life wasting away in his room. He couldn’t even find it in himself to go to school; what the hell makes him think that he can save everyone? The consequences are far too high now, and he’s so, so out of his league — his legs are threatening to buckle underneath him, and the intimidating eyes he’s gained from his mother have sharpened with his dread and desperation. 

He’s on the verge of collapsing every time he thinks about facing Elsa again, about _dying_ again, and he’ll be alone in doing so, won’t he? But even with every direction being a possible bad end, he’s the only one who can do this. 

Yet he still sways where he stands, cracking a joke or two on instinct to hide his fear. His mouth presses into a thin line as he considers, if only for a second, calling out for help. 

( _Stomping on him, smashing him into the ground until his teeth are practically wrapped around the pavement, his cries going unheard until — silver hair and a voice like a chiming bell —_ )

No. He can’t let anyone else die. He can’t even bear to face Satella knowing that he’s let her die at least once, along with the memory of her falling beside him in the loot house playing in his mind on repeat. 

When this is over, he can see her again without the crushing guilt, right? There’s no need to drag any more people down with him — because honestly, who would even care if he called for help? Why would anyone ever help him? 

He’s… he’s fine. This world is still his to conquer. He can do this, even if it’s alone. He’ll be able to introduce himself to Satella once he succeeds, and he’ll finally get her real name out of her once she’s well and safe. 

So Subaru, with his adrenaline pumping, kicks off the ground and pushes past the three thugs. His grocery bag is still tightly clenched in his fist as he makes a mad dash for the slums, the shouts and uproar behind him only spurring him on. 

His main objective: figure out a way to defeat Elsa. Once and for all.

With that, he can save everyone. 

With that, he’ll be able to see Satella’s face brighten once more as she recovers her lost insignia. And he’ll be there, shooting her a grin as he says his usual line: 

_My name is Natsuki Subaru. Not only am I totally clueless, but I'm also completely broke beyond compare! Nice to meet you!_

Even if he knows, deep down, that he won’t be the same by the end of this — he still musters up a smile at the thought.

  
  
  
  
  
  


When he opens his eyes, the tears brimming there finally spill over.

It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay, it will be okay, okay, okay, okay —

When he opens his eyes, he crumbles to the ground, gripping at his heart like it might just burst. He’s so fragile. He’s so weak. Why hasn’t he realized this before? One slash at his stomach and he’s already falling, already fading. Another slash at his eyes and the entire world turns to cruel abyss. 

He clenches his jaw and fights against every instinct in him screaming to run away, far, far away, from all the pain and everything that could ever hurt him.

 _No matter what_ — that’s what he said when he made his promise, and he can’t just _break it_ , because breaking it means breaking her heart too. He’s going to stack up more and more corpses with each death, and he can’t take any more bad endings. He can’t take any more of the others suffering for his every action and inaction. 

_No matter what, I’ll save you._

His hand reaches out and only grips at air, but he pictures his fingers wrapping around another hand, and his heart bleeds. His heart bleeds for one person in particular, but he can’t find it in himself to admit it just yet; other than his lips forming around his promise once, twice, thrice, and — 

_We’re only strangers_ , he reminds himself, and the thought haunts him. It haunts him just like how everyone else has to pay the price, when it should really only be him taking up all the costs to every loop. It should only be him who has to feel this pain, intimately and possibly infinitely (no, _no_ , please no, _please— no_ , you don’t even know if there’s a limit to this, don’t get ahead of yourself any more than you have already—). 

_We’re only… strangers_ , he reminds himself, even though she’s the only good memory he has in this world. 

When he opens his eyes, he takes one breath after another. Far too fast, far too much, his chest heaving with sharp, wet gasps. He’s only human after all, of course he has his limits. Everything feels like it's too much, closing in on him to suffocate him, but he — he hasn’t reached that limit yet, he still has to keep going. 

He bites down on his lip hard enough for blood to come bubbling to the surface.

This is his own choice; a mission that only he can accomplish. 

He’ll see it through to the end.

When he opens his eyes, he runs through his objectives and plans again. The lingering fear can’t disappear, and his heart blazes with a frustration that he can’t erase, but he can seize control of the one power that’s been given to him. 

And turn all those awful feelings into motivation. 

Defeat Elsa, avoid the alleyway thugs, utilize the knowledge he gains from every loop, and then he’ll save them —

He’ll save Satella. 

She really is the kind of person who’ll waste her entire life just to save a stranger like him; he’s noticed that the flower clipped to her clothing, the one from the appa merchant’s daughter, is always there in every loop. 

Even as he’s failing her, she still goes out of her way to help others. 

It happened in the first loop too, when he was mugged by those thugs right as he made his debut in this world. And when she gave him the name of someone who must be despised here — _Satella_ — she tried to push him away to keep him from associating with her in an attempt to keep him safe. 

She’s been the _only one_ to be this nice to him. And it takes everything in him not to latch onto it even more than he already has.

Because somehow, that unchanging quality of hers brings him so much relief. 

He still longs for her real name, but he settles on calling her Satella for now. 

Just as she had told him all those loops ago.

When he opens his eyes, he’s always balancing on the line between courage and cowardice. He isn’t sure of himself, and he sure as hell doesn’t know if he has the heart to continue. At the same time though, he doesn’t have the heart to quit. He doesn’t have the heart to break that promise he made.

_No matter what, I’ll —_

Death comes with every choice he makes, and he’s making the choice that will result in the most happiness the moment he succeeds.

If he could just try again, try a little harder, push himself even further, he can do this. Even if he wishes that he was different, that he was _better_ — someone smarter and stronger and far more powerful. Someone who didn’t need to struggle so much to save even one person.

He doesn’t wanna die, he doesn't, _he doesn’t_ , please, please, please, _please,_ he’s felt it before, he doesn’t want to feel it ever again, _please,_ please, _please —_

What is he even doing wrong? What has he ever done to deserve this? What has he done? What did he do wrong? What does he do? What has he ever done wrong? She didn’t deserve any of this either, why is this happening to them? What does he do, what does he do, what does he —

No matter how many times it happens, his entire being screams and cries out for someone, anyone. He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to die. 

He reaches out to Felt and Rom first — _they’re going to die, they always do, they’re going to_ — and sometimes their corpses are already waiting for him. Sometimes he watches them fall in front of his eyes, before the entire world spins and becomes dyed in red. Sometimes he manages to get them out only for them to die anyway, and —

Always, he reaches out and Elsa’s cruel ecstasy answers instead.

In his last dying moments, Satella smiles at him in that lovely way of hers, and says, _How many times must we go over this, Subaru?_

When he opens his eyes, as if awakening from a dream, he barks out a self-deprecating laugh. 

_There’s no need to drag any more people down with him_ , he had said. Tough luck; he’s still dragging everyone and everything down with him as he’s letting them all down. 

They’re counting on him. _She’s_ counting on him. There are eyes watching his every move, there are lives depending on his every decision.

But he got one thing right. Who would even care if he called for help? Why would anyone ever help him? 

Every time he’s on the verge of spitting out the truth — that he’s failed them, that he’s died and they’ve all died in horrible, nasty ways because of his own incompetence — he ends up biting back his words. 

_I can Return by Death_ , is such a heavy sentence. And he can’t. He can’t bring himself to say it. There’s no _point_.

Subaru is completely and utterly alone in this. 

He’s known it all along, and he’s always been alone ever since he was just a stupid little kid who failed to measure up to the stars he was named after — yet somehow, it doesn’t hurt any less.

But at least this hurts less than admitting to it.

No.

He’s fine. 

His back arches and his jaw drops open in a silent scream, his hands grappling for purchase and only slipping on liquid. His face contorts in his disgusting horror, blood and sweat and tears pouring down, down, down. Agony sears through every nerve in his violently twitching body. 

Once he manages to save everyone, he’ll have worth. He’ll soak in the attention, he’ll hate himself just a little less, he’ll put on a show and be loved. He won’t be playing the hero then, he’ll actually _be_ one. 

That happy ending he’s dreamed of remains so elusive to him, yet he strives for it all the same.

_But it’s not fair, why am I the only one hurting like this, why can’t someone —_

He’s —

It starts with the little things, but it all begins slipping away from him.

The taste of mayonnaise, hot cocoa and unwashed cups, the smell of his mother’s cooking, the cherry blossoms in the park near his house, his father’s booming laugh, his mother’s small yet conspiratory smile, Satella’s quiet but sweet giggle, the softness of Puck’s fur, the peacefulness of sleep.

What was it like again? He aches and aches, and all he can remember with absolute certainty are —

Dying words, foolish words, the smell of fresh and old corpses and vomit, the sound of his own screams, squelching and slickness, bone and intestine and complete and utter darkness, thoughts, horrible thoughts, dying words, foolish words, the smell of —

The first time Subaru realizes, he collapses against the wall and cries his lungs out. 

His homesickness drives him to stare at the contacts in his phone. And every time, his glassy eyes drift to the corner of the screen where it always, always reminds him that there’s no service. 

There’s no way to take everything back. Despite all the times he’s died for this, he still has the same rotten character. 

Satella runs by with Puck in tow, the two of them chasing after Felt and that stolen insignia. 

His first meeting with each of them has long since been erased. 

All because of Return by Death. 

His only power is to live and die on repeat. What good is that going to do if he’s too weak to take advantage of it? 

Even in this world, the world that was supposed to be his new start, where he isn’t a complete failure or a disappointment or just Natsuki Kenichi’s good for nothing son — he’s still being left behind, and he’s still such a horrible fucking person, and the world shoves his flaws right in his hideous face:

_Look at how you can’t save anyone! You can’t kill Elsa, you can’t even fully avoid dying to the three thugs, you can’t even save yourself!_

_You’re lost._

He’s wasted enough time. How stupid of him. 

Maybe he… almost deserves this.

A fist smashes his jaw, and he’s pulled up by the front of his tracksuit. His phone falling from his hands, dried blood under his fingernails. His jaw aches, and his bloodshot eyes meet with the largest of the thugs — ah. It’s them again.

_You’re lost._

The shadows draw closer, and Satella runs further and further away into the light. _Come back, please come back, why won’t you stay._ He doubles over to spit up a tooth, blood dribbling from his gaping mouth as he catches his breath, preparing himself before a foot pushes him down and crashes into his ribs. 

His eyes are hollow as his head is pounded into the ground, his ragged breathing ringing in his ears. Beside the sharp pain stabbing through his ribs, his entrails lay safe for this loop — even if his mind screams itself hoarse, _dying_ — he’s going to _die_ , _why can’t you just destroy them — make it stop make it stop_ , he crumples to the ground and trips on his own guts, a blade sticks through his back and a blade slams down towards his face until only his shrill cries echo and she licks the blood on her blade and his shattered jaw hangs open like a broken puppet —

Hatred rises from the pit of his stomach, ugly and raw and so painfully bright like a star. 

Disgusting.

Red floods his vision. He kicks and screams, clawing at their hands and feet and arms, they’re always hurting him, _make it stop_. 

A hand slams his cheek against the floor, and he quivers in its grasp. He almost wishes it was Satella instead, holding him even if it hurts. A gurgled groan escapes his swollen, bloody lips, and he can hear them. He can hear their words, but it can’t reach him now. 

The glint of a blade shines in the darkness. On instinct, his trembling hands grab at his eyes and stomach, but the knife dives into his throat first — scared. Scared. Why is he scared? He asked for this. He let this happen. He almost wishes that they were dead. Maybe it would be better if they were dead — no. That would waste time. She wouldn’t like it. But this hurts. Hurts. It hurts. He can’t breathe. 

He can’t breathe.

_You’re lost._

If he wasn’t so human, this wouldn’t have to hurt so much. 

If he wasn’t so human, this wouldn’t have to — 

Subaru chokes out this newfound feeling of his for the first time to Elsa, even if she could really care less, as he squeezes his eyes shut and his stomach is empty again and his throat burns like his warm guts: “I _… I_ … _fucking hate you._ ”

She only smiles and licks her lips — to her, he’s just a weak, incompetent, and reckless yet intriguing boy who appeared out of nowhere to challenge her. 

And he knows by now that she finds his bowels to be exquisite — she always says so with the same goddamn lines of hers. 

  
  


What is he doing wrong? 

He remembers and he struggles and he hurts and he never, ever gives up, but he looks around and all that’s left is his failures haunting him, his tormentors ready to shatter him into fragments, and the voices in his head screaming and crying out.

Of course. _Of course._ Even in another world, he’s ruined everything, and now everyone who could’ve loved him is gone.

And yet, the tiniest bit of cruelty emerges, filled to the brim with his resentment and ego, and asks, _Why… why shouldn’t I be entitled to what I want when I’ve died over and over just for —_

Here’s the kicker: Subaru really is tearing himself to pieces. 

He’s both devoid and full of pride from pushing himself to keep going, no matter what, with pretty words like _I’ll save you_ and _I promise_ and _it’s all for you_ alongside all the gore and outright misery. 

He’s both strong and weak, selfless and selfish. Strong for somehow managing to pick himself up, no matter what, after everything, and weak for dying and letting others die. Selfless for wanting to save people and going as far as to continue dying for them, selfish for wanting that new start and that _love_ and that stroke to his ego in the place of purely good intentions. 

And, because he’s honest with himself, he’s full of enough self-loathing to add that to his list of reasons behind doing this as well. 

_Because who else would have the strength to keep going_ , his pride-drenched determination says, even as it’s wearing him down to the bone. _If you continue, you’ll save_ her _, right?_

_Right?_

Because as he flails around in agony, as he sobs and shrieks, he imagines, in his delirium, her hand grasping his. And it’s easy. It’s easy to imagine when there’s only vivid, stabbing pain and emptiness — in his insides, in the hollows of his eyes — but this. This. Why can’t dying get easier? Why can’t this be easy? Why does he keep dying? Why is it always him? He’s scared, distastefully so. He’s scared, scared, scared, scared, and he knows he’ll —

But past that, the real question will always be this: _Don’t you care for her enough to continue?_

_Don’t you love her?_

His nails shove into the skin of his face, his mouth open in his shuddering, violent sobs, in the feverish and deranged rambling he can’t help but confess, his forehead pressed against the ground. He does not feel his guts spilling out. He does not feel the slippery blood staining his hands. He feels lonely. He feels —

“St-stop. _Dying_ ,” he seethes. “Stop… leaving m-me behind.” His head hurts. A slamming sound echoes, and his head hurts again. His nails catch on flesh. The flesh rips itself into shreds. “Stop it, stop it, _stop it._ W-why can’t you just. _Stop._ Go — go _die_ then, die, die, _die_ , again and again and m-make me watch and fail and — make me die too, if you can’t… if you can’t _just—_ ”

That was wrong. 

That was even more selfish than you’ve already been. 

Don’t do it again.

_She was in such a hurry to find what was stolen from her, yet she stopped to help me. She even came up with that lame excuse for a favor, even though I'm a total stranger. Anyone who lives like that… is just gonna end up wasting their whole life!_

Don’t. 

His basic human instinct still fails him; even as he lays there dying, his body will violently spasm and jerk away, attempting to scramble on his hands and knees like a dog as if he could escape just like that, as if he ever had control here, still fighting until the very end even if he only has mere seconds. 

Sometimes he’s far too dismembered to go any further even if his animalistic desperation to survive still grabs hold of him in a choke hold. Even if everything he’s put himself through plays like a broken record in his mind as another layer of cruel, merciless death is added, reopening that same wound that Return by Death has left.

It’s a repulsive thing; he’ll be so mutilated that he appears more like a carcass then anything, still wheezing with every disgusting breath because his body refuses to die easily when he’s clearly lost. 

Isn’t it best to just leave it for the next loop and continue on from there?

Because why? Why can’t this ever be peaceful? 

Like… like falling asleep — and if he can’t even achieve that then maybe, just maybe, he could die knowing that he’s accomplished something, that he’s made all this worthwhile, that he’s even lived a life he’s proud of.

After every death, he’s bathed in that same abyss before he awakens again.

He can almost feel a loving, possessive caress along his heart as if to claim him as its own, and he’s so starved for any sliver of comfort that he welcomes it despite himself. 

At his best, he despises it with every fiber of his being. At his worst, he turns to pretending that the hand gently squeezing his heart is — 

_I love you_ , the shadows whisper as the world fades away.

Subaru opens his eyes to that familiar sight.

(I want to go home.)

He tries his best to stifle that thought as soon as it comes to his mind.

  
  


Subaru used to make light of things, you know. He never could shut up that incessant rambling of his then; always going on and on about overpowered magical abilities and cute girls that should be there to save him ( _silver hair, an outstretched hand, a voice like a chiming bell_ ), about how Elsa was so much like a vampire ( _blood splattering across her face and a cruel, sickly sweet smirk as she dived in to—_ ), about how infuriating it was to be mugged by those same three people again and again, about how he’ll definitely beat all of them for sure and prove himself to be so much more than this, about everything and nothing at all.

Though there’s still that part of him that longs for the kind of importance he should have. 

( _I’ve been summoned to another world, right? Where’s my main character status and —_ )

It’s easy to surrender to hatred and anger, it’s easy to continue on regardless of all the things that stand in his way, it’s easy to turn to Return by Death and realize that this uncontrollable immortality of his points to importance anyway. 

And so, rattling off the same pretty, empty words on repeat like the world around him, he learns that maybe the Subaru then was right. In a sense.

This is a game. 

He wakes up at the same save point, going through the motions — wash, rinse, and repeat — until he finally wins. 

In games, your opponents aren’t people. They’re moving pixels mimicking flesh and bone, always laid on the path that the game had set for them, always directly in the way of the player. 

_Licking her lips, Elsa darts forward, quick as lightning to —_

_The thugs jab a knife into his back and_ —

His fingers dig into his hair, pulling frantically at the strands until they fall out.

He’s growing colder and colder by the minute. 

Subaru doesn’t… he doesn’t want to die. Not when pain is always involved. Not when he has that same _want_. 

But this isn’t exactly living, either. 

  
  


Satella chases after Felt for her insignia as always, and all Subaru can think about is begging her to just stay. Stay with him. 

It gets harder to remind himself that they’re strangers, that they haven’t even met in this loop, that he barely even knows her. But at least the thing that stops him in his tracks is the sight of their corpses from that first loop — because he can’t face her. He can’t.

He stares at her face and thinks about the sheer amount of times he’s let her die. He stares and stares and dies and he can’t even save _one person._

Didn’t he swear that he can’t meet her again until he’s finally saved her for good? 

By... killing Elsa.

He wants to tear her apart limb from limb. _I hate her. I want her gone. I —_

Her shattered ribs caving in and her —

Yes… that has to be it. 

The only way past Elsa is to shove her six feet under. The only way to save the person he cares about the most is to focus on _Satella_ , and Satella alone, and the rest will follow afterwards. If he can save one person, he can save everyone else.

And he feels sick, sick to his stomach at the thought, but he digs his nails into his palms and he grits his teeth, and all will be well soon. He gathers up hope and determination as usual. He holds the fate of the people around him in his hands, he bends time and space itself with his death, and it’ll be worth it seeing Satella smile at him again. It’ll be worth it becoming someone worthy of her love and affection.

Won’t it?

  
  


There’s still no one left to put up an act for; jokes and pick-up lines and blabbering about details from his world do absolutely _nothing_ for him now. 

Except —

( _Subaru, you’re such a dunderhead!_

 _Who says dunderhead in this day and age?_ ) 

There’s no one left worth putting up an act for _yet_ , he amends. 

Once time moves forward past this day, then he can start over from zero for certain. 

That… that would be nice.

( _Oh, my name? It’s… it’s...)_

  
  


The insignia doesn’t matter if they’re all _dead._

He just wanted to do one good thing! He — he wanted to pay her back when she was so kind to him then, he wanted to be a whole different person who wasn’t so pathetic or useless or _weak_ , and he wanted and he wanted and he wants, and nothing, _nothing_ goes according to plan. There are hands around his throat, growing tighter and tighter, stifling any choice he has, until he can only grieve everything that could’ve been. 

He can’t understand. He doesn’t want to understand. If he’s been in the wrong, if he’s always been wrong, what has all of this been for? What is he even supposed to do — if he was transported here for a reason, why is he still stuck? Why has all of this been so horrible from the moment he came here and —

Has any of this even meant anything?

He wanted to be special so badly, didn’t he? 

Well, now he’s fucking got it. He —

His head smashes so thoroughly that he can only see stars, his feet tripping over each other. As his shoulder shoves into the wall, his cheeks wet and his clenched jaw aching, he blinks and he realizes that there’s currently no one else around in this alleyway but him. 

Shuddering, he wraps his arms — stinging from where the blood-stained fabric rubs against his —

He wraps his arms around his stomach as he gathers up his resolve again.

It doesn’t matter how much he hurts. Go beyond the pain, beyond the tears. Beyond any and all boundaries, consequences and costs be damned, and then, _and then_ —

Everything will finally make sense, and his happy ending will be there, waiting for him to reach out and seize control of it.

White bone fractures out of his flesh, his mangled fingers convulsing and his crushed chest sending sharp slivers of agony throughout this soon-to-be dead body. Grasping the splinter in his hand, his mind floating away — he places his humanity there, beside those distant, fragmented memories of mayonnaise and a warm embrace and convenience stores, beside his purpose, beside his promise — he stabs himself in the throat, purely driven by spite alone, his remaining eye fixated on Elsa’s blurred form.

His last breath hitches with some semblance of a self-deprecating laugh. 

Beside his soon-to-be carcass, Felt and Rom’s corpses lay nearby, and half of his last thoughts are _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please just, just forgive me_ and he barely means it anymore.

His other thoughts are this, empty and numb, save for the desire for —

_I hope my damn bowels satisfy you._

_See you in the next one._

An easier death, as if he was only falling asleep — isn’t that what he wanted, several loops ago? 

  
  


It won’t be the first time he kills himself.

Several loops from now, it’s an inconsistent occurrence; usually Elsa breaks his jaw and slices his abdomen before he gets the chance, or his broken mind submits to dying horribly, fighting with every last despicable breath. 

Death is a paradoxical thing — that little desire to die or not to die is overshadowed by his just as desperate persistence, by the innate want to save and survive and never have to taste that torment ever again, but he settles all of the regret with each gruesome end.

But occasionally — when he’s nearing death’s embrace, when he _knows_ that he’s doomed another timeline — he gives himself a quicker demise.

For efficiency's sake, he tells himself. 

Keep going. Keep going. You have no other way out. You made your choice and you have to finish it. You have to. You’ve sacrificed too much to back out now. You’re not allowed to quit. It’s fine to crack under the pressure, it’s fine if you or other people get hurt, as long as you finally reach that blessed future, as long as you finally get what you want in the end.

You’re not a coward, are you, Subaru? 

You know what needs to be done, even if you’re still too weak to go through with it. 

  
  


He wishes that Satella would smile at him and say his name once more; she’s always remained so bright and vibrant in comparison to all the others — who’ve become so dull due to all the looping.

Because he knows this from experience: repeat something enough times, and you’ll inevitably become sick and tired of it — if the memories haven’t already been washed away by time rewinding.

But Satella… She's the one and only exception. 

Maybe she always has been.

He buries his face in his hands, stifling a sob, shivers wracking his body.

Yes… that’s right. She’s the reason why he’s doing this, and this is the only thing he’s good for — he’s molded his purpose around it lovingly, frantically, and he’s completely lost himself to its embrace. 

He doesn’t matter enough to ever stop.

Satella chases after Felt as always, and Subaru justifies everything with this:

The whole mess started because Felt stole Satella’s insignia after being commissioned by Elsa to do so, leading them to the loot house to die. Felt then lead Elsa to them. Felt left him to die to the thugs, while Satella helped him instead, and that father figure of hers must agree with her. She and Rom will die anyway. Who will care about them? Isn’t it better to focus on the person who matters the most? 

Maybe his head is far too faint, maybe his vision is blurring, maybe he isn’t thinking straight. Maybe he’s blinded by loathing, but really, who cares? He was right to focus on Satella; those two are already lost, and they never were as important as her in the first place.

The guilt still makes him bash his head against the wall again, and it hurts so much that he nearly loses his stomach then and there, but he compensates by crying instead. He’s cried so much already, but he can’t stop that either at this point.

And here’s something that he’s wondered, time and time again: 

What would his parents think? 

( _Take care._ )

All his hatred, his plans for murder — even if it is in self-defense — along with his picking and choosing in regards to which life has a higher priority, his shitty attempts at heroism, and all this _death._ He’s never been so vividly aware of his own mortality before, and it’s just so, _so_ awful. 

( _You’re definitely his kid!_ )

Well. He knows how disappointed they’d be, and he’s already let them down his whole life. And yet, he almost wishes that they would be proud, deep down, of how he’s managed to survive all these loops. But most of all, he wishes that they could just —

Hold him. 

( _Hate him._ )

Just like he longs with all of his being for Satella to do the same — he’s wrapped his arms around his torso before, shaking and hyperventilating, his eyes wide and fixated on her distant figure chasing after Felt, desperately wishing that someone — especially _her_ — could just _stay._

“Stop,” the word squeezes out of his mangled throat, half-strangled and half-sobbed, “Stop… _stop…_ ”

The fear that he won’t come back has already become entangled and intertwined with the fear that this won’t ever end, no matter how much a part of him doesn’t want to accept it. On the other hand, his promise and Satella and the thought _maybe, just maybe, he’ll get used to this_ are his only comforts. 

Erratic, out of control breathing, his body torn open, his heart beating faster and faster. There’s always so much blood, and it tastes like bitter copper each and every time. He’s digging his grave, he’s going past six feet, he’s all alone. He’s been the only one to die in this loot house for the past few loops. He’s let the other two die again and again, and he can’t bring himself to care all that much anymore. 

A shame. His strategies are all going dry. He thinks about dying too much, but the world always rewards him for it. His insides are gone. He’s burning, it _burns_ , scorching through him until everything is reduced to ash and dust and smoke, slipping through his fingers and escaping into void, unreal and dreamlike and far too much all at once. 

“I’ll... kill you.” His choked weeping comes out in a faint, trembling whisper. “ _I'll kill you_.”

If he wasn’t so human, this wouldn’t have to hurt so much. And with that, he finds that if he wasn’t so powerless, if he just had all the power and control, then he could —

( _What, be the hero who saves the day and gets everything he wants? Face it, this is all your —)_

That shadow always clutches at his heart with obsession, with _envy_ , until it eases, turning into the slightest hint of sorrow as soon as he hopelessly leans into it.

He hasn’t acknowledged this part of himself at all, or maybe he doesn’t even _want_ to acknowledge it, but he understands those feelings all too well. It’s only another reason to spur on his loathing, even as he prefers emotions as ugly as that over useless thoughts like _why can’t this just end_ — because at least the former strengthened his resolve more than the latter ever did.

 _I love you_ , the shadow says, mournfully, as if in a veiled apology. _Love, love, love, love. Love me. I love you._

He hates how the worst of him is reflected in those demanding words, in that death grip around his heart.

 _I know_ , he replies, desperate and hollow. _Of course I know that._

Once Subaru opens his eyes to that familiar sight, he breaks down like the scared child he is. He’s dying, he’s dead, he’s fucked himself over, he —

As much as it makes him sick to his stomach, he wishes that he could be the one to hurt others — instead of always being the one to be so afraid, so hurt.

Because here’s what he’s learned: some people are better off dead, and he holds time and all of the lives within it in his grasp. 

He — he knows who he’d like dead. And after all that’s happened, he’s on the verge of including himself — if there even was a point to it. Because really, he’ll die anyway as long as he doesn’t have the heart to quit, as long as he has the heart to continue with his promise.

And he knows that he doesn’t have a choice. He won’t be allowed to die _permanently_. 

No, _no_ , shut up, shut up, _shut up_ —

Stumbling into that same alleyway, leaning heavily against the wall with every ragged breath, he buries his nails into his skin as he vomits.

_You’re lost._

  
  


Back then, he called them lumps of EXP, didn’t he? 

He drives a knee into one of their chests, delivers another brutal kick, and the smallest of the trio flies into the wall and collapses to the ground. 

_Stop._

With the tell-tale cracking of bone, comes shrieks of pain and enraged shouts in his direction. The corners of his mouth quirk up with the hint of hysterical laughter, even though he wants to scream. He wants to make them scream.

What, are they the only muggers in this entire city? 

_Stop._

Are they the only ones he has the power to defeat like this? After all, he’s managed to win fights against them in the past, and it’s been far more successful than —

_Stop it._

A solid punch here, a quick dodge there, and another kick to the groin. His breathing quickens to a frantic pace, but he still gets the job done. Once the last one doubles over, his fingers curl around a discarded blade beside their crumpled body. 

He turns to the smallest first. Kan, was it? It’ll be the most efficient, right? And then —

 _STOP IT_.

With a loud clatter, the blade falls to the ground. 

His eyes are blown wide, his teeth biting the inside of his cheek. 

Then, he does what he’s always been great at — he runs. 

His footsteps are unsteady. His heartbeat echoes in his ears. There’s the tiniest bit of blood on his shaking fists. There’s that faint whisper of, _What would she think about you now, Subaru?_

Roughly, he raises an arm to wipe his tears with his sleeve.

He can’t. He can’t just kill them for this, he can’t just —

He’s such a coward.

Just avoid them, and — and he’ll stop thinking about it, right? He doesn’t even need to kill them right now, it’s not _necessary_ at all, and it’s… it’s _wrong._

But he wanted to. He wanted to kill them so badly, and he came so, _so_ _close_ to doing it. 

Look at what they’ve all done to you. Don’t you deserve to hurt them after that? From the second you came into this world, it hurt _so much._

Don’t you deserve to fight back? 

No, he can’t. He can’t do it, he’s the one who keeps going into alleyways to get mugged by them, wasn’t his plan back then to avoid them as much as possible? This isn’t necessary, he isn’t forced to kill them like he is with Elsa —

And if you have to kill them or anyone else that stands in your way? What then?

You know _exactly_ who you want dead, and you have the means to do so if you just persevere enough. 

_Stop it_. 

Don’t think about it, just avoid them. 

Just… save your energy for Elsa.

Several loops from now, he’ll forget to do so, throwing out excuses as beautiful as _the end justifies the means_ when he also desires that chance to lash out. The chance to be the monstrous one, to vent out each and every bit of frustration and hatred, to finally accomplish _something_ here.

That, too, is a slow-burning fuse. 

  
  
  


His memories are melting down to foam, the taste of death along with his own delirius words trapped on his tongue, and all he can think about is _her_ , scorching through his soul — before all of this, his last sole moments of happiness were with her, and — he can’t. He can’t stop his mind from being devoured by thoughts of only those specific memories, and the thought of _her_ alone, because he really is that pathetic. That _desperate._

The question he’s asked himself over and over since then has always been: _Don’t you love her enough to continue?_

And the answer has always been in the form of one anguished cry after the next.

 _Yes. And I’ll do it again hundreds upon thousands of times for you,_ all _for you, if that’s what it takes._

_Give me your love._

  
  


There are whispers, following his every move, and shadows lurking at the corners of his eyes. Black holes poking and prodding, too much like the abyss awaiting him every time he fails. 

Blood underneath his nails. Spasms throughout his body. He’s going to lose it, staggering through the street and begging somebody, _anybody_ to just let him sleep. 

There’s no time at all to lay down and rest other than in death. 

Where… where is this coming from? 

Where...

His head throbs, his stomach rolls with barely-suppressed nausea. A single thought cuts through the delirium: 

If he even tried to count his mistakes with every corpse he’s left behind, he’d surely run out. 

But it’s too late to run. Right? It’s far too late. He’s made his bed, and he’s lying down in it until he’s finally won, swallowing back his guilt instead of his pride. Every time he returns by death, it becomes easier and easier to stop questioning _why._

Why him? Why anything? Why Satella? None of that matters as much as he believed it did. He just needs to see his promise through to the end, even if the knowledge that he’ll die, and die, and _die_ , makes him want to vomit. 

And the truth — that maybe if he wasn’t so human in his weakness, this wouldn’t be so goddamn difficult — is a slow-burning fuse. 

It always has been.

_I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. It hurts, it hurts so much, please don’t make me do it again —_

Blood underneath his nails, aching pain in his twitching fingers; a kind of pain he can control.

It started off as a way to ground himself, a way to bring himself back from the brink. Dig his nails into his skin, bite down on his lip hard enough to draw blood, pull back a fist and smash it against his cheek, feverish and dizzying and sickening. Quickly, it became a punishment for his failures. An expression of his fear and frustration consuming him from the inside out, even as he hates himself all the more for this. It’s awful and horrible _but_ —

This is all he has. 

He was fucked from the beginning. This world should’ve been his to conquer. This world should’ve been _fair_. 

He still screams when he’s sliced open. He still weeps when reality bends and the loop bleeds into the next. He still murmurs his promise to Satella when he catches a brief glimpse of her on his way to the loot house, still admiring her beauty. 

Is this love? 

There’s that warmth of her smile and her gentle nature, and it’s so different from the warmth of his spilling guts.

This… is love, right?

He still remembers her body falling limp beside him, her cold hand grasping his as they died. He still remembers the faint moonlight, the pool of blood underneath them, the kindness she showed to him threading itself into his fading memory — those growing gaps in his mind march on as he loses count, as he loses with every desperate retry, as he loses more and more of himself. 

Blood pours out of his mouth, blood splatters along the walls, blood stains his hands where he’s clutching his stomach to hold back his guts, and he still shrieks and wails to no one but his tormentor and the corpses of others that he, too, is always unable to save. 

He tells and has told himself multiple times that it’s better to focus on what’s most important to him, shoving down his guilt as he does so, because he doesn’t want to ever forget Satella. 

Or even let go of her. 

He doesn’t want her to feel this kind of pain.

She’s _everything_ to him.

( _Oh shut up, you can’t even count how many times you’ve let her_ die _—_ )

Isn’t love sacrifice? 

_I don't… want to..._

Love _is_ sacrifice, isn’t it? To love is to sacrifice. To sacrifice is to love. 

And he finds that he longs, he _longs_ for power almost as much as he does love. If he had power, he could destroy everyone who’s ever hurt him, and everyone who will hurt him — raising himself above, and razing all who scramble below. He could create a paradise where nothing ever hurts, carve himself into Satella’s heart as much as she has to him, soak in all of her love and affection —

But he can’t even stop all of these horrible things from happening. He keeps wasting every new chance he gets to go cry and sob and fall to pieces. His choices are being taken away from him, one by one, and all the remaining decisions are clouded over by his desperation.

He screams out to an abyss, _What did I do to deserve this?_

 _What have I_ ever _done?_

_What the hell am I supposed to do?_

( _I love you,_ says that voice, that person who reminds him of himself, caressing his heart.)

No one replies. 

Even still, there are eyes watching his every move, claws threatening to squeeze out his soul, voices murmuring back his deepest thoughts. 

He shouldn’t think about all those awful things anymore, they say. He needs to pull himself together, they say. He can’t stop now. He’s passed the point of no return. Satella needs him. He can redeem himself if he does this one good thing.

Oh. His thoughts are looping too, aren’t they? 

His head feels like it's been beaten to death with a bat. His mind almost doesn’t feel like himself anymore, because he’s spiraling out of control when he barely had any in the first place.

God. This is the most pathetic he’s ever been. His human fragility, his inherent weakness that’s been taunting him with every death, always bursting with emotion that’s been blinding him to any rationale. In between all those unwanted thoughts of _I don’t want to die_ and _I’m at my limit_ and _I can’t do this anymore_ , his traitorous heart flutters with _I’ll die. I’ll keep dying. I’ll keep dying._

It beat the naivete out of him, at least. A kind of karmic retribution, really. 

He’s never hated himself more in his entire fucking life.

The cherry on top is that he still clamors for comfort like a starving man, and the funny thing about it is that he’s incapable of starving. His body always resets with the day. Hunger and thirst and sleep deprivation are minor and momentary. So are any injuries, including self-mutilation and death, even if it hurts _so much_ before it resets, and then it hurts again. And again. And again.

There’s still blood underneath his nails these days. 

Sometimes he glances at those groceries he bought so long ago. Sometimes he pulls out the jagged-edge coin that he used to help that little girl once, with Satella. Sometimes he even stares down at his phone and scrolls through the contacts list. 

And he still dons that all-too familiar tracksuit — obviously out of necessity, but there’s sentiment and nostalgia attached to it as well.

Worthless, worthless nostalgia.

When there’s little to no happy things in this looping reality, he’ll hold onto anything he can get his hands on — he still does wish to go back to being that blissfully ignorant once more, just like all the rest of the people here, if only so that his failures and pain disappear.

But at the same time… why would he ever want to lose the progress he’s made, no matter how small it is, when he takes so much pride in always moving forward? 

It’s the only thing he’s good for.

The blood bubbling from every scratch, and his own thoughts of revenge tell him that he’s a hypocrite. And yet, the tears welling up in his eyes, in all his fear, in all the shambles he leaves that no one ever knows, tells him that he’s just human. 

No matter how much he doesn’t want to be. 

On top of that, more than almost anything else, he wants someone to hold him and never, ever let go. Wipe away his tears, grasp him in a warm — not scorching — embrace, sweet words of understanding and reassurance whispered into his ears. He wants to rest his head on their shoulder or in their lap, curling up against them like the child he is. Closing his eyes, listening to their steady heartbeat, knowing that they’re not dead and he’s not dead. That they’re safe and at home. 

There, nothing hurts. There, nothing will hurt. 

He waits, and waits, and waits for that touch, begging, _Please don’t let me die_. But this never —

Closing his eyes, he longs for someone, anyone. Satella is so dear to him, and so are his parents. He knows that he’s a shitty son, knows that he’s made so many mistakes that it exceeds the number of times he’s died. But they’re the only people who’ve been good to him, the only people who’ve ever been there for him. He’s selfish, he knows he’s selfish, but more than that, he’s desperate and broken and dead and wants to be told this: 

_You’re doing good, it’s going to be okay. I know that it hurts, but I promise that it’ll be alright._

The shadows draw in tighter, his head split between the knowledge that he has more chances at redemption, and the knowledge that this could last for an eternity.

Hurts. It hurts, _hurts_ — rip out his heart, shatter the bones in his body, blow everything to smithereens and he’ll be _safe_. He’ll be safe and sound when _everything else is dead_ _except for_ —

Don’t. Don't. Don’t say it.

A hand rests on his cheek, another wipes his tears away. All of those awful thoughts disappear. They’re nothing. They mean nothing. Oh, Satella needs him. She’s not too far gone, unlike those other two at the loot house. There are eyes on him as well, whispers following his every move, and Satella needs him. He’s dying and dead and so overcome with emotion, but he still has a promise to fulfill. 

_Please leave me alone_ , he wants to say, even so, _You’ll get hurt, I don’t deserve you. I never deserved you. I won’t… I won’t be able to — what if you’re already g —_

 _Please don’t go_ , he wants to say, even so, _Stay. Stay forever. I’m scared. I need you. You’re all I have. Make this stop hurting. Please._

Yes… this is all he can do.

So then — he embraces sweet, sickening oblivion.

  
  
  
  


In his first loop, there were two hands under the moonlight, grasping each other gently, softly. And it’s a tender thing, devoid of death and suffering. 

He remembers the serene glow of the spirits around her as well, his face softening and his cheeks going pink as he stared at her in awe. He remembers her and the little girl and him going hand-in-hand, her distant gaze as she tried to push him away with the alias _Satella_ , and her excuses about why she helped him as if she wasn’t just a pure and kindhearted person from the beginning. 

Subaru reaches out, cradles those distant, happy memories to his chest, and curls up tighter as if to protect them. 

The floor is slick with his blood, squelching noises and his traitorous, still-alive heart ringing beside his ear. Someone is whimpering, someone is smiling, someone is watching him die with glee. But it’s all distant. It’s all gone to static. If he concentrates, he could push through the hazy chaos, but he laughs and cries and drifts away in his own pathetic rebellion. 

_Subaru…?_

His body is so fragile. His mind is so scrambled, like the eggs his mother would make in the morning sometimes…

Oh. _Oh_. That reminds him —

Those unwashed dishes he left when he turned his back on them, those cups and plates, one in particular stained with hot cocoa that he drank himself before _everything…_

He couldn’t even do something as small as that for his parents.

His vision blurs. He can’t tell if it's blood or tears. So he closes his eyes, pretends that he’s simply falling asleep, pretends that he’s floating up on a cloud. His hitching, wheezy breaths are slowing too, and the searing pain is fading to bitter cold. 

Ah... another failed loop, then.

If only warmth could reach him now. If only he didn’t have to wait for _her_ touch. If only he didn’t have to taste death with every failure of his.

_...I’m heading out to the convenience store, Mom._

His body is utterly decimated, torn apart so easily as if it were a piece of paper and not flesh and bone. The only thing making it through the static and this carcass he calls a body is fear weaponizing into hatred — he hates himself, for ever thinking that this world would put his weak, horrid self up on a pedestal, for ever thinking that he could just start his entire wasted life over without any consequences, for ever thinking that he could succeed at all when everything is stacked against him.

He hates the thugs for being such irritating obstacles in his way. He hates Elsa for being so unstoppable, so invincible, that he can’t fully remember how many times she’s crushed him so easily like an insect under her heel. All he can remember is being so filled to the brim with this pain and hatred that it’s downright _suffocating_ —

Subaru drifts, drifts, drifts, to somewhere far away above the sea of bloodshed. He curls up tighter, like a child cuddling up against a loving parent, and not a dying one awaiting empty bliss and embracing delusion.

_Am I… even human anymore?_

It’s funny, he realizes, to struggle so much and end up with nothing but this.

And this… is regret, isn’t it? 

_Take care._

Subaru should’ve said _I love you_ , he shouldn’t have ever left, he shouldn’t have shut himself in his room and turned to escapism and waited for the hours to go by so that he could have the perfect excuse. He should’ve just kept up that act of being the best son they could ever ask for, he should’ve lived up to the brilliant people his parents are, he should’ve shone as brightly as his namesake, and he shouldn’t have gone astray with his stupid attention-seeking. 

_You’re definitely his kid!_

He’s driven everyone away. He’s ruined everything he touched. He dared to wish for more escapism like he could ignore his own issues forever, and now he’s been given an illusion of everything he thought he wanted. 

Love, adventure, a partner, a friend —

He was dying before he came to this world, lost in apathy and the confines of his room and sleepless night after sleepless night. He buried himself under his bed covers, tuned out the sound of his ticking clock, and pushed through rising anxiety day in and day out. The dim glow of his computer and phone screens were his only friends. Fiction had been preferable to whatever garbage his looping life had become, and he was doomed then in that fate, like he’s doomed and dying now in this one.

That paradise he imagined when he had been transported never existed.

He supposes that the universe must be punishing him for everything he’s failed to do, for everything he’s failed to be.

Who… would ever miss Natsuki Subaru? 

_No matter what… I’ll save you._

What a joke. Seventeen years and god knows how many loops… and it’s all been wasted.

A strangled sound. An eternity stretches on, time warping with every last breath. There’s the tiniest flash of rage and resentment, but that, too, fades away. And as a hand pets his blood-soaked hair, this destroyed body of his finally goes limp. 

So he falls asleep, leaving behind another fruitless grave.

  
  
  
  


Then, Subaru wakes up at that familiar sight, and something within him shatters.

 _Why now,_ he can’t afford to crack _now_ -

With his teeth chattering, and bile rising up his throat, only the same strangled sounds escape from him, stuttering and shaking and wheezing. 

Ah. _Ah._

He’ll die. He’ll die, die, die, die, die…

_No matter —_

_No matter what —_

Die… die, die, die, why won’t the rest of the world die for him instead in this awful place, why should he be the one dying, why should he be the one suffering, why can’t anyone save him, why is it always _him_ , all he wanted was —

_I’ll… save you —_

But he’ll die. He’ll die painfully and horribly, and he’ll keep dying. He’s stuck, he’s lost, he has no idea how to get out of this, he’s only got one purpose left and it’s crumbling to dust. He really believed that he could make himself worth something, that he could save people and be loved in return, but now —

_I’m going to die. I’m going to die._

It’s the only way out, the only way left, he has to die if he wants to finally achieve something, he has to bloody his hands and —

N-no, he’s — he’s fine, he can do this, he can, he can, he… he…

He caves and sobs in his mother’s arms, grasping her in a death-grip. He cries, “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, please help me, please make it stop, I want to go home, please take me back home.” 

She then kisses his head and rubs circles into his back as she says, “I know, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay.”

His mother doesn’t mention the dried blood under his nails, or on his knuckles, or soaking through the sleeves of his tracksuit. She doesn’t mention how much he holds her painfully tight, hands digging like claws. She doesn’t mention the way he looks at her — wretched and hollowed by overwhelming fear and that starvation for comfort. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry _,_ ” he wails as his overloaded mind suddenly goes blank. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” 

“You’re going to be okay,” she murmurs. Her hand squeezes his own, and he chokes up at the feeling. “Remember that I’ll always be here for you. I’ll always love you, Subaru.”

And so, her voice follows him through the streets and into the slums, dances with him through every frantic footstep, whispers after him as he contorts in agony on the floor of the loot house, threads itself through the invisible scars along his disgustingly fragile body with every reset. 

Subaru tells himself to numb himself to it, carve out all of his insides until he’s hollow, if only so that he won’t… he won’t have to feel this pain anymore. 

He doesn’t want to hurt anymore. He doesn’t want to do this anymore, his traitorous heart screams, even as he marches on with that promise on the tip of his tongue. Even as he turns to coping method after coping method — scratches and dreams and vows and love. 

_I’ll always be here for you. I’ll always love you, Subaru._

He shoves down any guilt and shame with, _Who cares if it’s wrong?_

It all resets anyway, with everyone else being blissfully unaware. He’s the only one who knows. The only one who’ll ever know. 

Who… would even care about him? He’ll die in the end… that’s how this always goes. It’s what he deserves, isn’t it? Everyone follows the same exact actions as if they’re being led with a script, and he holds his breath and carries his last thread of hope until he dies again. 

They’re not the ones suffering for someone else’s sake, after all. 

He is.

And in a way, aren’t they the ones who made him like this? Maybe it’s all their —

“I love you, my son.” A hand ruffles his hair, and another playfully punches his shoulder. 

It still takes everything in him not to immediately stuff his face into his father’s shoulder and cry. 

“You’re your own person, you gotta know that. Your mother and I are here to support you.”

The two of them are always haunting, always calling for him, always _touching_ him, and he hates that he longs for them with every bit of his weakness. He hates that they’re there, reminding him of everything he’s lost — because he’s lost himself, he’s lost his home, he’s lost _them_ , he’s lost so much and he’s _all alone_ — 

( _I won’t ever be able to see you again_ , he doesn’t say, _You’ll never know what’s happened to me, you’ll_ mourn _me and it would just be so much easier if you hated me, if you_ despised _me from the very start._ )

So he gasps out, “Stay away from me,” even as he chases after them, drags them down with him in his loneliness. Even as he’s slowly, surely, forgetting them and any other traces of his old life. 

All of those memories are being cruelly replaced. After loop after loop after loop, the repetition is the only thing that remains, sinking its claws deep in the crevices of his mind. 

“ _Stay away._ I don’t believe you. I can’t believe you. You’re not here, you’ll _never_ be here. You’re…”

(Gone.)

“ _Subaru —_ “

One second he’s on the verge of tears, and in the next, he’s slamming his phone against the alley wall until it fractures, shatters, cracks. 

Harder, _harder_ , until he’s out of breath and his entire body aches. His pupils are dilated, and his hands are stained a bright, dizzying red.

Subaru pretends that it’s a neck snapping under the pressure, pretends that it’s his enemies’ death throes as he delightfully drinks in their suffering, elongates it further until their very last breath. He —

He stumbles away from the wall. 

Minuscule, sharp pain along his twitching, broken hands. A clatter as the phone falls to the ground. A chill down his spine. A small gasp ripping away from his throat. Wetness along his cheeks and fingers. Guilt and fear nagging at him, disturbed and shaken.

He rationalizes: all that damn phone has ever done was taunt him with the fact that his parents will forever be out of his reach. That he’s always been out of reach ever since every desperate attempt to get someone to _stay,_ ever since he holed himself up in his room, ever since he cut himself off from the world outside of fiction and the home he took for granted.

He rationalizes: this is fine — all he has to do is make himself hollow and harden his heart to despair, to grief, to kindness and morals and self-worth, get rid of all those things that always held him back. He doesn’t _need_ any of it anymore. To hell with anything else but his promise.

He rationalizes: someone please save him, someone please wipe his tears away and tell him that this all means something, because he’s _scared_ , he’s sickened and terrified by _himself_ , he needs to know that this will be worth it, he —

Ah. This isn’t quite rational.

Subaru clutches one shaking hand with the other, listening to the sound of his panting and wheezing, staring at the blood spilling from his skin. 

It hurts.

(His parents have left of course, but it’s okay. He left them first anyway.)

Subaru reaches down to pick up a nearby stick. The point of it is surprisingly sharp, especially when handled right, and it’s certainly good enough for attacking. 

Absentmindedly, he considers pointing it at himself for just the slightest bit of release, as shame-soaked as it is. 

This loop’s already gone to waste anyway. 

Or waiting in the shadows until that trio comes by again, striking for the big one first — in the end, Subaru would plunge the tip of it into their necks, again and again and again. He’d smash their hideous faces in too, slam his fist into their skulls until every bone in his hands shatters, and smile with satisfaction at the blood splattering all over the wall and the pain erupting within him.

A lovely shade of red. The wheezing keens of their last breaths. The agony lacing through the nerves in his body — a truly exquisite feeling.

What he wants most though, is to gut Elsa like she did to him, strangle her with her own entrails like a noose, until her face grew pale and her body twisted and turned about like a flopping fish. The life leaking out, the knowledge that he’s finally saved Satella — yes. This would be —

Subaru doubles over. 

He feels sick. 

_Why… why, why am I —_

His fingers are twitching violently, sporadically. The stick drops to the ground with a clatter. His ears are ringing with a cacophony of static. He’s falling, faster and faster, making one misstep after the next, and now he’s stuck drifting around in circles. 

Always waiting for his demise. Always fearing and hoping that this end will be the last, always relieved and so, _so_ full of hatred and frustration that it never is. Always repeating his promise to Satella like a mantra, and always breaking it over and over and over and —

The only thing left is love. This idiotic yearning he feels, wanting desperately for someone to love him, give _everything_ to him as much as he gives everything to them — and remembering that there’s no one left to love and be loved by, except for his parents and Satella.

( _We’ll always love you, Subaru —_ )

Sweet, lovely Satella.

Subaru rolls up his sleeve, and digs his nails deeper and deeper into his flesh until more blood bubbles to the surface. 

His legs are trembling too, as he looks down at the mess he’s made of his arms and hands. The pupils of his eyes remain dilated, pricking with tears. 

This kind of pain is horrible like everything else, but he’s perfectly in control here. It’s nothing like the way fate dangles him around like a puppet on strings, taunting and mocking his every weakness. 

His disgust with himself still grows, though his mind drifts away.

 _Love_ , he ponders with gritted teeth and bloodied hands. 

Yes, love is the most important thing of all. 

For starters, his parents are —

( _Liars._ How could they love him so wholeheartedly, so unconditionally? He’s worthless and a waste, heading off into the deep end and dreaming of bloodshed and — and planning on carrying it out. They should hate him. They should. It would spare them so much grief.)

( _Gone._ They’re gone. There’s no point in thinking of them now, not when he knows that he’ll only continue to fall and spiral. Not when he can’t ever go back to them, not when he’ll likely forget about them throughout what could be an eternity of looping. Even if he still gives in and sobs in their arms, they don’t matter anymore. 

There’s a lot of things in this world that don’t matter anymore.)

Subaru doesn’t want to think about his parents. 

He doesn’t want to even consider them. It’s no use thinking about people who are —

After all, there’s no one in this world left to love and be loved by, except for Satella. She’s tangible and present here, a beaming light in the darkness, and she’s absolutely unforgettable. He adores her for it — for the warmth she gave to him, way back then. 

Even… even if they were never meant to be, death still couldn’t completely tear them apart. 

He thinks about the possibilities often, about what they could’ve been without all of this. 

Maybe he could’ve taught her radio calisthenics, grasping each other’s hands in something other than death, and yelling out a _Victory!_ with their wholehearted laughs filling the air. 

He’d give her a cute pet name, because they were always his favorite show of affection — like Satella-tan _._ She’d giggle adorably in response, and he’d find himself flushing pink and stammering over his words. His mouth would run ahead of him as always, even as he’d try his hardest to ask her out on a date, or ask for a lap pillow — just… just something intimate like that. 

Then, with his hands braiding her soft, silver hair, she’d smile at him and say:

_Thank you for saving me, Subaru._

And then eventually, _eventually_ , he would glance up at the night sky, anxious yet earnest all the same, and whisper to her, _Of course, Satella-tan. Although… the moon is beautiful, isn’t it?_

There’s a wetness on his cheeks again, and cries on the tip of his tongue. 

( _I can’t do this, I can’t —_ )

He still feels sick.

It’s okay, he tells himself. He’ll get used to this. Everything will become easier once he finally discards everything that’s holding him back.

And he knows exactly where to start — by killing those three thugs. 

Oh, he’s been resigned to killing Elsa, of course. But with those three, he has a far greater chance of succeeding. He’s always wanted this anyway.

He didn’t want this. He didn’t. 

No. He wanted it. He should’ve accepted it sooner.

That’s it. That should do it. Bile is already crawling up his throat, but it’s fine. Sacrifice is an old friend at this point.

One less obstacle, and then he’ll grow closer to finally being free of this. 

  
  
  


A single, revolting thought cuts through the static: 

_This… really is new, isn’t it?_

_Good. It was getting boring anyway._

  
  


Subaru knows that he’s been able to defeat the thugs in the past. Hell, he managed during one of his first loops, back when he was so hung up on dying. Since then, he’s come close to killing them before, even if he’s backed out until now.

That won’t be happening again.

So. His plan goes like this:

Before he heads into the alleyway, he’ll draw tally marks in the ground by using a stick. He had started this little habit a couple loops ago, given he needs to keep track of things — especially with his shitty memory. 

Though it’s really about time he’s done something other than drawing tally marks, repeating his promise, staring at Satella from afar, and facing Elsa in the loot house.

Then after drawing those tally marks, he’ll then use that same stick and utilize it as a makeshift weapon. 

The sharp end of it will do just fine. He knows that from experience.

If he aims for the big one first, or the one with the blades, then he’ll get the main threats out of the way first. 

Ton and Chin, was it? He’ll use these nicknames if only just to differentiate each of them from each other further, physical differences aside. 

He isn’t sure why he bothers. 

Regardless, they’re not exactly bright; they’ll be frozen in shock, buying him time to beat whoever’s left. 

They won’t expect some random kid to retaliate so brutally, let alone one only carrying a stick. 

Besides, the smallest of the trio — Kan — will be easy. He’ll be terrified after seeing his friends be taken down just like that. Maybe he’ll try running, but Subaru will be there — one kick is all he needs. 

The last step? Stomp on their necks until the bone gives way; it’s the quickest and cleanest ( _and least nauseating_ ) option. If he has to, he could also take one of those blades and plunge it into their throats, or simply stab them to death, or even strangle them. 

As long as they die in the end. Painfully, with the same horror that Subaru has experienced himself with every death.

And if all else fails, he can try again. 

Once he succeeds, he’ll drag their corpses further into the alleyway to do the bare minimum of hiding them. It’s not like there’s a way to test for the culprit; there’s no DNA testing or the same sort of surveillance in a fantasy world. 

He won’t be found near the bodies anyway; he’ll be able to get away with it. Scot free. 

It’s almost hilarious. He used to think that avoidance was the best way to approach them —

 _It’ll save me the energy and time I need to defeat Elsa_ . 

_I know these streets like the back of my hand_ . _Not only can I find better ways to avoid them, but I can make it to the loot house faster._

 _No matter how much those thugs annoy me, no matter how much they’ve hurt me in the past, I can’t just kill them_.

How cute. 

No, if he can kill these three, then he can kill anyone else that gets in his way. 

This is practice. 

This is _accomplishment_.

After all, hasn’t this been a slow sort of death from the beginning? 

He’s said the same old nonsense a million times over. He’s said that he should be the only one to hurt and the only one to suffer and die, only to turn around and say that other people should hurt in his place. That other people deserve to die as much as he does, and he insists so disgustingly, so passionately, that it’s all for _her_.

A slow death; a degradation of his morals as he’s constantly tested at every turn. And yet it’s still dreadfully inconsistent of him, hypocritical and contradictory, even as the trio he faces now holds a particular nickname he’s given them himself —

Tonchinkan. Irrelevant. Inconsistent.

That’s okay. It’s going to be okay. It’s not like he was going to be whole by the end of this anyway — as long as the one person who matters above the rest will be alive and well, then aren’t the means justified enough, no matter how unsavory? 

Even so, he continues trembling like a leaf. 

Pathetic.

The first loop he tries to kill them ends in failure. 

Subaru was too hasty, too blinded by his own emotions, too reckless as usual. Ton manages to get one good hit in, and he immediately crashes to his knees — sparing them enough time to strike him from all sides.

He lets them hurt and kill him, he tells himself. Instead of crying out like he had in the past, he can only feel something close to emptiness as he’s beat to a pulp. A hint of fear gnaws at him, but he crushes it with hatred.

That should serve as a good enough reminder of what he needs to do, and a fitting punishment for _everything_ — for failing to save anyone, for turning to murder to solve his problems, for never being all that good of a person. 

This will only cement that, won’t it?

Yes… the first execution of his plan ended in failure, but it’s the one and only time.

He certainly makes sure of it.

Once he pushes past that familiar abyss and restarts, he aims for Ton first.

He supposes that it’s one thing knowing that you want someone dead, and another actually attempting to go through with it. 

Is this what those three saw, when the light faded from his eyes? Is this what Elsa saw? Is this what being in their shoes was like?

_Stop. Stop it. Stop. Make it stop. Why are you —_

Curse his pathetic heart.

His face scrunches up with disgust as the bone snaps underneath his foot, abruptly cutting off a scream. It takes several tries for Ton alone, but Chin and Kan are far easier. As expected.

His legs threaten to collapse underneath him. His frantic breathing hitches, wet with tears. He bites down on his lip to muffle screams of his own, his hands reaching up to yank at his hair.

He’s… done it. 

He had to improvise this time around; he used the stick to dig into Ton’s throat, then he caught Chin unaware and beat him thoroughly. After stealing Chin’s knives, he had stabbed Kan, who tried to run away. 

He’d been so feverishly angry, so overcome by hysterics disguised by a hollow exterior and meticulous planning. 

Their eyes stare into him now, blank and frozen in shock and fear. Their skin pale and cold to the touch, their necks hideously twisted to the point that jagged bone sticks out of the flesh. Kan’s tiny body in particular is littered with more stab wounds than necessary, blood overflowing out of his mutilated corpse.

Kill them all. Again and again and again. That’s what he believed and believes now, that’s what has to be done, that’s what _needs_ to be done, they deserve it, they had it coming, they’re _easier_ than Elsa — 

Subaru doubles over and chokes on one violent heave after another, vomit splattering to the ground.

Elsa has noticed his increasing instability over the course of all these loops, and her reaction shifts ever so slightly in response.

She sees the blood splatters on his hands and face, and gives him her usual deceptively beautiful smile and the lick of her lips. She fights as if it’s a dance, and makes amused comments about how much he — a bitter boy with nothing to his name, and a child who’s far out of his depth — wants her dead. 

Always curious, always mocking. She goes from calling him pathetic to commending his effort, showing interest in his bloodlust, and questioning exactly _why_ he tries so hard to fight her — despite everything.

She says, _You’re not loved by this world, are you?_

Subaru never graces that with an answer.

He only continues on, coming closer and closer to killing her as he memorizes her every move, but it’s still as agonizingly slow as his worst deaths. 

He’s _weak_.

_I love you_ , the shadow says, sadly, with its arms around his neck like a noose, and he leans into that warm touch with his lips tightly pressed — just to keep himself from screaming.

 _No_ — why did you do this to me, why am I still _here_ , why does it still hurt, I _hate you_ I hate _everyone, why_ , why, bring me back, I want them _dead_ , I promised, I _promised_ and it still isn’t — but —

The shadow has _her_ voice.

He’ll never be the same after this. He didn’t want to do this, he doesn’t want to do this, he swears to a god he doesn’t believe in that he doesn’t. This has _never_ been what he wanted. 

Maybe he convinced himself that he wanted this. Maybe he convinced himself that it was better to want this than to suffer without doing a single thing. 

His hatred, his fear, his anger — they all squeeze his fluttering heart, pouring in panic throughout every inch of his synapses, and whisper, _Liar. You asked for this._

“This was _necessary_ ,” Subaru says to no one at all, and no matter how hard he tries to remain calm and rationalize, his lips quiver and his voice cracks and his eyes sting. He can’t tell if it’s with phantom pain or tears. “I-I had to do it! They would’ve killed me — it would’ve hurt, it hurts _so much_.”

_You can’t kill Elsa, but you’ll default to the next best thing, won’t you?_

“They were in my way,” his mouth goes dry and he’s gone hoarse, but he forces the words out in a snarl even if no one is here to listen, even if his face scrunches up as he’s bordering on hysterics. “They would’ve killed me, over and over and over, and I — I’m sick and tired of being scared! I don’t…” His voice cracks. “I don’t want to...”

( _I want to be the one to make others fear me. I want to be the one to make them hurt._ )

Hands cradle his face and brush away the hair plastered onto his face with sweat. Leaning into that calming touch so selfishly, he’s shuddering, coming undone after tearing himself apart again and again, and his own hands are stained. Every inch of him is stained.

“I’m here, Subaru,” a voice says so sweetly, and he knows _exactly_ who it is from that wonderful sound alone. “It’ll be alright. You’ve... been really hurt, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” he confesses, and the fact that it comes out in a whimper makes him sick to his stomach. “I’m sorry.” He can only see how the life drained from their eyes, his shadow looming over them as his fists ached and his heart burst. They died so quickly. They did so much worse to him. “I’m sorry.” He doesn’t know if he even means it. “ _I’m sorry_.”

“Shh, let it out,” she coos, stroking the back of his head. “Please know that one thank you is better than a thousand apologies, after all. But you mustn’t suppress the hurt you feel either.”

So he curls up tighter into a ball and presses his face into her shoulder, his glassy eyes squeezed shut as he bites down on the inside of his cheek. Even if he knows that she must be disappointed in him, that she must feel hurt herself — to see him stoop so low like this — he could honestly care less right now. 

The person to be feared, the person who isn’t cowering away and crying his lungs out, the one above all the rest — that was him. That was _him_ , and experiencing this so intimately intensifies his intertwined disgust and adrenaline high and that sense of _nothingness_ until he can’t breathe. And he doesn’t know what to feel besides loathing. 

He’s hated himself for a long, long time.

But he thinks that maybe, he almost hates everyone around him more for leaving him to rot.

With his face hidden away, and the shadows obscuring his features, his hollow smile appears more like a sneer. “Thank you,” Subaru whispers, ragged and reverent all the same, “You… gave me my purpose, you know.” 

His heart bursts now with a love twisted with raw conviction, and purified by several loops of martyrdom and devotion and absolute loyalty; he can justify the skin under his fingernails and the corpses he’s left in his wake with this alone. He can justify all of the sins he has and will commit with _I’ll save her_ and _she’ll be able to smile at the end once this is over_ and _this is all I can do, this is all I’m good for_ and _they deserved it they deserved it they hurt me I deserve this I’ll make them pay —_

“I really can’t… thank you enough,” Subaru rasps, his closed eyes stinging and his grip tightening. He can’t tell if he’s holding himself or her, but he continues on regardless, obsessively and desperately in equal measure. 

With his lips forming around the name she’s given him, he murmurs as if in prayer, knowing that this is still a damnation all the same, “Satella _._ ”

There’s no room for doubt here. 

_You bastard,_ is wheezed out in between gurgling and coughing up blood. Fearful eyes nearly swollen shut, the dilated pupils reflecting one Natsuki Subaru — his entire body wound tight with a passion only merciless fury can give, his face contorting into withering cold. 

Later, he stares at the blood stains on his beloved tracksuit, and he wishes that this wasn’t so damn _messy_.

But if it’s for a good reason, it’s fine to kill them… right? 

He ruins everything he touches but _oh_ , he’ll turn it to his advantage, and he’ll make it as twisted as their broken, strangled necks.

Elsa shatters his cheekbone in one hit. He rolls over to spit up bile, and then twists around to peer up at her with a crazed glare. 

_Come to think of it, I saw blood on you earlier_ , she muses. _My, oh my… just what have you been up to?_

He’s no one’s son. He’s no one’s son. He’s no one’s son. He’s no one’s son.

It’s so cold.

The thugs question his blank, empty stare right before he dives in to jab at their throats.

 _I don’t want to die_ , is a statement that becomes music to his ears. 

He can understand the sentiment. He can vaguely recall all those tragic moments in his new life in this world, and he can stare right into each one of the thugs’ gazes and see that —

They’ve hurt him before.

They’ll gladly do it again when given the chance. And he’s been stupid enough to give them that chance, and stupid enough to keep doing so; if only so that he can crush their pitiful attempts. 

Oh well. The tables do turn, it seems. 

Satella turns her back on him to chase after Felt. 

He waits. And waits, leaning against the wall at the entrance of the alleyway with his arms crossed, staring after her.

The tally marks will be fast approaching eighty, at this rate.

 _I see_ , Elsa says. She only chuckles, eyeing the blood on his stolen knife, along with that sight and scent of that same blood on him. 

_You and I_ , she says, _can perhaps understand one another._

Aren’t their lives so small, so _insignificant_ compared to the rest of this horrible world? 

His arms are curled around his torso as he heaves for breath, struggling to contain every hitched gasp. His guts are warm. So warm.

“If you’re going to kill me,” he screeches, “then just _get on with it already._ ”

This is _progress_. All of this has always been inevitable. He can’t get anywhere without using other people, is that it? 

If he does that, will he finally make it? 

Who cares. Who cares about him, about anyone else? He’s killed them multiple times and in multiple ways, something he’s never dreamed of doing until now.

Until… now.

Has he gotten everything he wanted, or has everything he wanted been taken from him?

At the very least, his rotten character has always stayed the same. His shadow looms over the thugs, and he can _feel_ it in his sharp smile and in the pit of his stomach — he’s coming undone. He’s torn himself apart. He’s _done it._

Satella turns her back on him. And beside his kneeling form, lies cold flesh and —

Stop looking at me like that. Stop it. _I’ll make you stop._

_It’s an easy thing_ , Subaru tells himself.

His arms ache, and he doesn't exactly feel like a person anymore; corpses are awfully heavy, after all. 

_It’s a simple thing_ , he adds, a stark red swimming in and out of his vision, _like a habit._

_Think of it like a habit._

In his dreams, he’s braiding Satella’s hair, the strands soft against his unscathed skin like silk. Under his breath, he murmurs, “Thank you,” for the one millionth time. 

In between his own soft words, a thousand apologies are still nestled there, and he wholeheartedly means every single one.

Nothing hurts here. His heart isn’t weighed down at all, all of the horrible things he’s been through erased for good, and he can finally feel at peace. No wrongdoings, no mistakes, no regrets, no guilt, no loss, and the rest of the world fades away until there’s only the two of them.

What a beautifully useless idea.

_Die,_ die _, why won’t you die, just die for me, just kill me I dare you, why can’t I_ change anything _, why can’t I ever save anyone, why won’t you die for good._

He revisits that once small, slow-burning fuse of a thought now, and finds that he can accept just what he’s becoming — because the pain can be more easily ignored now, and it’s so much more bearable that way:

_If he wasn’t so human, then this wouldn’t have to hurt so —_

“Keep going,” he reminds himself. 

Killing the thugs every loop is always as inconsistent as their nickname. 

Sometimes it’s messy and slow — thrusting a knife into a heaving body or a rasping throat, stomping on their faces until their teeth are wrapped around the pavement, and throwing the smallest one at the wall to shatter. 

Or Ton gets the upper hand for once, his punch awful and absolutely nothing compared to everything Subaru has been through. Or Chin slashes at him and manages to make him bleed, while one of the others charges behind him.

Human weakness, their useless attempts to stop him, and their hideous selves believing so wholeheartedly in their own ability… it’s all so irritatingly _pitiful_.

On the other hand, it also brings him so much satisfaction to snatch away their victory in the form of every violent method he knows.

But in the worst loops, blood pours into his eyes and vividly reminds him of all the times Elsa has gouged them out. Or he holds a knife up high in a death grip, right above an abdomen, as flashes of spilled guts invade his mind. 

Always sending him spiraling, always resulting in him bringing down that knife again and again because it’s not enough — desperately gulping up air, his actions frantic and crazed and absolutely livid like a cornered animal. The taste of blood tasting so bittersweet, the sight of their death throes so thrilling and terrifying all at once, and it’s _never_ enough. 

He’s been in their place so many times. At the mercy of a sadistic perpetrator, ready to be slaughtered for reasons ranging from lofty ideals to ruthless ambition to _because it would be wonderful._

In the worst loops, his monstrous side becomes so much clearer to him. In the worst loops, the shadows grow tighter until it’s suffocating, whispering his every insecurity until he loses more and more of himself in order to smother it. 

(“How could you,” one murmurs in Satella’s voice.)

(“You’ve always been nothing,” another spits. “You’ve always been stuck at zero. And you’ll always stay there.”)

( _I love you_ , cries the shadow in the abyss, growing more desperate and obsessive with every loop. He thinks that he hates her. He thinks that he loves her. He thinks that they’re one in the same at this point.)

In any loop regardless, every kill becomes easier to stomach. Every death becomes easier to bear. He leaves his hopes and dreams in the abyss, and he leaves his goals for the next Subaru to carry out. 

Now, there’s that familiar sting of bruises on his hollow face, and the familiar metal of twin blades held tightly in his shaking hands. 

Another few seconds of rest, and then he’ll head towards the loot house. Felt and Rom should be keeping Satella busy at the moment, though if he needs to use Felt and Rom as shields… then he will. Of course he will.

“You’re still running,” he hears from behind him, disdain and contempt dripping from every word, “You’re still the same coward you always were.”

“Oh, _really_ .” Subaru bares his teeth in a snarl. He does not look back. He _can’t_ look back. “Just stay out of my way.”

He’s been festering all this time, preferring to collapse in on himself first, imploding like a supernova — but now?

Cruelty is blissfully empty, and he wonders why he never let himself go sooner.

An abyss awaits him as always, and that familiar shadow reaches for his heart saying, _I love you._

Subaru responds, as tender as a bruise, with this: _Thank you, for giving me the power to fulfill my purpose._

Getting rid of anyone and everyone who stands between him and his goals will prevent them from ever bothering him again, and he has infinite retries in a body that belongs to this shadow bringing him back in time. 

Of course, that also means endless torture, and Return by Death is still a double-edged sword that he’s impaled through his chest a thousand times over.

And yet, beyond that, beyond the pain and the grief and all the hurt, lies the truth: 

Let go of all feeling, of all weakness, and he’ll be _unstoppable_. 

This is _it_ — this is what he wants, what he’s ever wanted, there’s no one who can touch him now. Isn’t that right? _No one._

No… it isn’t…

It doesn’t _matter._

But he’s succeeded with dealing with the thugs. He’s _so close_ to finishing this. The only thing that matters is —

The shadow quiets.

They made him like this. 

He’s not the only one in the wrong, he’s not the only one at fault here.

Everyone — except _her_ — is insignificant in the end, in the grand scheme of things, and he should know. He’s dragged himself, kicking and screaming, through all of this pain for one person alone. None of them know, none of them have seen and felt all that he’s experienced, and they’re making it _worse_ —

One good thing. That was what he had claimed back then, and it’s what he claims now along with _I’m the only one with the power to do this_ and _I’m the only one who’s suffering_ , and god, he can’t bear to even look at himself anymore. 

His regrets stretch on towards the horizon, and he wonders if he’ll ever be able to see the moon and the stars in another light than _oh, here’s another failed loop_ as he tastes death, he wonders if he’ll ever see the sun rise again as time no longer moves forward just to take several steps back.

But he despises this feeling with every fiber of his being. It’s as worthless to him as so many of the people around him, but at least they can be turned around for his benefit. 

How repulsive, to put this into words, but then he remembers his bones fracturing and his overflowing insides and his gouged eyes and knives in his back and more mutilation than he can count, and he insists that it’s justified.

A piece of the Subaru then — the one who readily dove head first into fantasies and make believe, wholehearted yet egotistical all the same — is broken away with every reckless restart until only the worst parts remain. 

And the best parts of him involve tearing himself apart.

Head to toe in viscera and bitterness, the Subaru now only fans the flames. He continues to drag himself through this, going through the motions he’s rehearsed so many times — still uselessly kicking and screaming — though he pretends that this isn’t just something as ugly as twisted indulgence, revenge, and inflated self-importance. 

Oh, he knows. But he pretends, and he acts, and he rips apart what remains of guilt until there’s nothing left, and he musters up a broken giggle towards the heavens, and he finds comfort in _her_ , and he uses each corpse he’s left as a stepping stone, as a missing piece, until he claims his starring role in a story of his own creation.

  
  
  


But on top of his newfound role, if only for a second, he’s always, _always_ , reached for Satella, and he repeats all those moments again and again in his loneliness. 

Even as he continues repeating his vow to her, the tally marks he makes at the beginning of each loop counts every single broken promise, the shards slicing open his heart anew. 

Now, he draws the tally marks for this loop on the ground of that cursed alleyway, as usual, and the realization comes to mind once he’s finished:

Satella is his _only_ comfort in this world that should’ve been his. 

As his memories of his old life are fading away and crumbling to dust, she’s his last pleasant memory. Amidst the sea of blood and gore, the agony pushing him under and dragging him into its depths, she’s his last burning hope rising into a crescendo. And that warmth guides his mind to the memory of their first meeting, turning it over and over in his head until it’s worn by his own desperate desire.

Of course, he’s always been desperate, desperate, _desperate_ , no matter what world he’s in. And yet the memory of her can’t fade. _It can’t._ He doesn’t — doesn’t know what he’d do without her, _without her_ , and —

He’s gone all the way back to the start so many times that it all blurs together. It’s always all the way back to that same appa stand, and the same alleyway with the same people, and it ends with that loot house and his own insides pouring out of him with a sickening squelch. 

Or, there are those rare cases. The loop ends with his broken, oh-so-fragile body until that same trio puts him out of his misery, or with a jagged splinter piercing his own throat, or with his pathetic gurgling and sobbing as he bleeds out against the alley wall.

So he chuckles under his breath now, but it sounds more like crying, if anything, even though he’s running out of tears to spare. It’s easier to laugh at how far he’s come instead of sobbing about it.

It’s easier to feel nothing at all.

He reaches for his phone, and throws it against the wall. 

It breaks.

The cracked screen, shining dimly with his contacts list full of people he cannot speak to ever again, and the groceries his old self had bought so long ago are a disgusting sight. 

Why did he bring these things with him? A corpse trapped in another world has no use for any of this, just like a corpse has no use for an insignia.

Oh, he finds the reminder of who he had been before this hell disgusting, he finds every single damn person in this entire kingdom disgusting, he finds the predictability of it all disgusting, he finds the trio that mugs him in every loop disgusting, he finds himself disgusting, and most of all, he finds Elsa — unkillable, unbeatable Elsa — to be the most disgusting of all. 

If life’s a play upon a stage, he’s sick and tired of the actors and their lines and props and predetermined fates. And in this cruel story, he’s begged and pleaded and wailed the same idiotic cries for help a thousand times over — _what did I do to deserve this, what have I ever done to deserve this, why can’t I just go back home, why can’t this just be over, why can’t I ever save anyone, why, why, why, why —_ with all the screaming and whining of a petulant child, who can never get what he wants, who can never change his destiny, who can never rewrite his doomed reality. 

It didn’t matter what he did, and it didn’t matter what anyone else did because the world always rewinds. Everyone acts out their roles — always taking the same paths they always do, always reaching the same ending. They’re all puppets connected by that faint, fragile string from the very fabric of time, even if time itself continually degrades further down into nothing in Subaru’s eyes. 

He snaps, he breaks, he cries, he shatters, he crumbles, he shudders and screams, and it doesn’t mean anything. Everyone around him is so blissfully unaware, and it would be absolutely hilarious if they weren’t. So. _Ignorant_.

And sooner or later, he’ll drag everyone down with him into the depths of this misery. They’ll all fall as one in the end, scattering like ash in the wind, and it’ll be fitting for this endlessly weaving tragedy, really.

Except. 

_Except._

For _Satella_. 

The only person in this story who remains close to his hollowed heart is _her_.

The only lines that never make his stomach churn are his promise to save her, and the kind words that she had spoken to him in that first loop, even if it’s been ruined a thousand times over. 

And despite everything, she is the only one that he could never become disgusted with. No matter how much this restarts, no matter how much she stays the same — because the idea of her remaining the exact same person always relieves him. Because the truth is that everything in this world is rotten and despicable and _worthless_ except for sweet, lovely, untainted, and pure Satella, who’s saved him time and time again, and who’s been the only one to do so.

Because he loves her. 

He loves her _more than anything_ — he’d burn down the whole world for her, he’d make it hers and hers alone. 

And so, he holds the memory of her close like the desperate, petulant, lonely child he is. 

_No matter what… I’ll save you._

Oh, the worst part is that he’s still comforted every time he wakes up at the same savepoint. It means another chance to save Satella, even if it could also mean another failure, even if it means more of his trembling psyche tearing apart. 

_No matter what… I'll save you._

_No matter —_

_No matter what —_

His resentment and hatred and dreams of vengeance almost fall away with the light of Satella’s smile, but his own foolish determination still remains. If he keeps going, if he keeps _fighting_ , someday he could —

_I’ll save you._

_I’ll —_

“Back here again?” 

Subaru shoves his palms over his ears, his fingers curling tightly in his hair. His hands are awfully slippery. A familiar, sickly smell invades his nostrils, and he swallows down bile. “Why now, why don’t you ever _shut up_ ,” he grits out, “Why won’t you just leave me alone like everyone else.”

He knows how to fight back, he knows how to destroy, and he knows how to go through with it enough to the point of near desensitization. So why, _why_ is he still hearing this, still hung up on something as necessary as everything he’s done up until this point, when this comes from instinct, from _habit_ , now?

A shadow leans against the alley wall, its arms crossed, its face a mass of shifting darkness in the shape of a flickering flame. The faint outline of its chin jerks up to look down on Subaru’s kneeling frame, wracked with violent shaking. 

“Sorry to disappoint. At the very least, you’re all alone now, you know.” With the playful hint of a cruel smile, it speaks conversationally, as if talking about the weather. “C’mon, how many times have you failed her? Hm… let’s count by tens to speed things up. Ten, twenty, thirty, fourty, fifty —”

“ _I know._ ” His hoarse voice raises to a shriek, flashes of all the tally marks he’s drawn intruding his mind. “I know, I know, _I know_ , go away, _just go away_.”

“All those tally marks, and you don’t want to admit how many times you’ve failed,” it sneers. “Congratulations. You’ve started life from zero in another world, and now you’re a real fucking nutcase, aren’t you? Do you think our parents would be proud?”

Subaru recoils at first, and then — “I don’t _care_ .” His aching hands twist in his hair, strands falling out from where he’s pulled too hard. “You really think that’s gonna work on me,” he spits out, blood running down his chin from where he bit his lip. “You really think I’m just gonna stop after a little guilt-tripping? Ha. _Haha —_ No. No, I don’t think so. I _never_ give up. Because if I do, _if I do_ —”

“Ah. Let’s get straight to the point.” Amusement shines through in the shadow’s voice. “Why didn’t you run away? Isn’t running away your forte? You didn’t _have_ to kill them.”

Subaru’s face spasms. His chest heaves for air as if his heart is still being squeezed. “I don’t need or want to hear any of your _bullshit_.”

“But our original plan was to avoid them, wasn’t it? It sure didn’t last long.” The shadow tilts its head, its distant features contorting into a satisfied smile, monstrous and altogether sickening. Behind it, is a stark red, splattered across the wall in short bursts. “You’re stupid enough to keep going into the same alleyways to let them find you, and stupid enough to continue for more than ten loops just to kill them — like this is all a game to you.”

He stiffens, snarling under his breath, “You’re _wrong_. I don’t give a damn about what you have to say. I don’t give a damn about anything besides —”

“Oh, Subaru,” the shadow muses, cruel pity squeezed into every biting word, “Of course you don’t care.”

It moves to stand upright, kicking out its foot to step right through a sharpened stick — the tip of it the same stark red as the wall. 

“Listen, we’ve played a lot of video games back when we were as close to normal as we could ever get. This works in exactly the same way, you know. If you want to achieve anything, you spend your time fighting, performing repetitive tasks in order to win. That kind of thing, right?”

“ _No._ Don’t lecture me, you bastard,” Subaru snaps. “Don’t act like you’re so high and mighty, like you and I are — like you can just get away with —”

The shadow only drifts closer, maneuvering carefully around a limp, blood-stained hand. Ever so slightly, details come to light: discarded blades, the hint of a lopsided neck, white sticking out of the flesh, unblinking eyes, and bruises forming along his knuckles.

Subaru’s voice dies in his throat. His head throbs. He tears his gaze away with a sharp inhale, pressing a shaking hand to his face, the heel of his palm digging into his eye. 

“The character you play dies over and over, but you always respawn at your save point,” the shadow continues on in a drawl. “You always reach victory once you slay all the bosses, slaughter all the bad guys, no matter how many times it takes, and your determination and perseverance bear fruit in the end. Sound familiar yet?”

 _Going through the motions — wash, rinse, and repeat — until he finally wins._

_Moving pixels mimicking flesh and bone, always laid on the path that the game had set for them, always directly in the way of the player._

“They’re not _people_ ,” the shadow reminds him, its tone harsh and grating and petulant. “And they’re not even human either — whether it’s because they’re simply too powerful for you to destroy without dying a million times over, or because each and every one of them isn’t enough of a person in the face of our purpose.” 

“ _Quiet_ . Leave me alone, _leave me alone._ ” Hatred burns so brightly within him as if it were a pyre, and he was the corpse. “You’re such a _hypocrite_.”

“We said it a long time ago, didn’t we… think of them like lumps of EXP. Like NPCs that are only there just to facilitate our little _‘hero’s journey_.’” The shadow makes air quotations with its flickering hands as it chuckles, dangerously low and bitter. “Like stepping stones on the path to that elusive happy ending, that optimal result.”

A monster… from the very _beginning_.

No.

_No._

_No, no, no, no, no —_

“If there’s meaning, if there’s purpose, then everything and anything is justified. You feel alive only when you’re bloodying your hands, or obsessing over someone you don’t even know the name of.”

He lurches forward with bile pooling in his mouth, hands clenching at the fabric over his heart. Feverish rambling falls from his bloody lips— “ _Stop it_ , I know already, _I know_ , I don’t want to hear this anymore, I’ll make you stop, I’ll kill you. _I’ll kill you._ ”

The shadow laughs at him, pushing on regardless with sadistic delight. “Oh, but we haven’t felt love in forever.” The jagged contour of its mean eyes and crooked smile are sharp and predatory, the silhouette of its hand pointing directly at the hint of broken flesh in the darkness beyond it. “There’s only our sweet, precious Satella-tan, our darling girl who’s completely and utterly unaware of how much she owes us. We both know that she would be dead permanently if it wasn’t for us, if it wasn’t for all the sacrifices we’ve made. Isn’t that a shame?”

His teeth sinks into the meat of his thumb as he shoves down a scream.

“Scream and cry all you want,” it mutters ruefully, “We’ve made our choices. But there’s still improvement to be made, isn’t that right? I thought you wanted to better yourself.”

_I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you._

That sickly smell, that figure representing everything he despises, the slightest bit of truth that he refuses to completely see — none of it will leave. Why won’t it just leave? 

“Oh, don’t give me that crap.” It leans down to hiss more poison into his ear. “Did you lose all of your guts dying to Elsa? You’ve spouted the same nonsense all this time: ‘No matter what it takes. As many times as it takes. I don’t care about any price I’ll have to pay, about how many sacrifices I’ll need to make.’ You’ve known it all along — you’ve been predisposed to violence from the very start. And you’re not a coward, are you? Even if all of those pretty words about saving and protecting are a big fucking lie.”

 _Pin him to the ground._

Shatter his ribs and tear out his disgusting little heart, slam his head against the floor until he can only see stars — _stars_ … that’s funny. That’s _so_ funny _._ Shouldn’t he be the one who’s —

A weight settles on his chest. He’s on top of a heaving body, a soon-to-be corpse, and it wears that distorted remnant of his revolting face. The scent of decay, the nerves throughout this body that’s not his, that blurred border between that last bit of humanity and his agonized obsession — it all clamors for retribution. 

_...a star?_

For excruciating, violent meaning.

_Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die._

With his still hands wrapping around its neck, Subaru squeezes, tighter and tighter, until its faint pulse flutters in his grasp. Claws scrambling at his fingers, darkness closing on him. Tears silently pour down his contorted features, no matter how much he tries to hold it in.

Sooner or later, all stars die.

“There’s nothing… stopping you… but your own weakness,” it gasps out in his own voice, disgusting and vile. The shadows clear, ever so slightly, until the shape of its haunted gaze pierces right through him like a sword impaling his chest. “Are you… happy now? Satisfied... by your little power trip? Isn’t — isn’t repeating the same thing over... and over again... expecting something different… the very definition of insanity?” 

He can’t stop hearing it, it won’t stop echoing in his mind, _stop lumping me with you, I know I don’t want to hear it stop it_ —

But past the hatred, lies that horrific sense of agreement. 

Oh, of course he’s had all those thoughts before. This is wrong, this is so wrong, but this is still as lovely as that braided silver hair in his unscathed hands. 

The only difference is that awful truth. 

And this... is what he deserves.

“To hold that power in our hands... isn’t it wonderful to be above them all?” It barks out a mocking, breathless laugh, even as its mouth only continues to wheeze and gasp. “To raze everything as an expression of devotion... a demonstration of our feelings for Satella... the ultimate offering of love, and all for the happiest ending that we can ever hope for. It’s the only method we have.”

“So what,” he seethes, even if he’s wracked with half-suppressed sobs. Harder, press harder, until it chokes on its last breath. Until there’s nothing left, until it’s gone to void and viscera, until you’ve shared every inch of your agony. “So what if it is?” 

Then — silence. 

Blissful silence, except for his own wet gasps and the fading, strangled noises beneath him. The red stains along the walls and the ground and that stick, the discarded blades, the slightest bits of white — they don’t matter all that much, do they?

Then — words squeeze out of a throat that should be decimated: “We can die over and over and we’ll still come back as good as new, isn’t that amazing?” Its head lolls back, its mouth slack-jawed even as its ragged voice persists, “Do you feel like a star, yet?” That infuriating heartbeat slows to a snail’s pace, and then to nothing at all. The cold flesh around his aching fingers makes him want to tear out his insides. “ _Haha_ … a hero, even?”

Subaru rips his shaking hands away. As he drags himself off the body and over to the side, he tries to gather the energy to hide the corpses further in the shadows. 

Stumbling to his feet, he hisses, “Why are you still here.” He slings an arm over his churning stomach. “Why won’t you just _leave_.”

“Oh, Subaru,” it whispers, saturated in scorn and spite. He refuses to even glance its way, but he can _hear_ the too-wide grin in its tone. “Stop running away… why don’t you take a good look? Don’t they live up to their nickname? Tonchinkan, was it?”

One blink, one step backwards, and then clarity comes crashing down in front of him. 

A neck, reduced to mangled and crooked remnants of flesh, speckled with sickly green and purple bruises in the shape of his hands, and gruesomely twisted to the side. Eyes, bulging and bloodshot, lifeless and faded. Tear marks lay frozen underneath, whispering, _Look what you’ve done._

His own hands are covered in scratch marks from where he was clawed at as he strangled —

A slow death. This was a slow death of everything that was once Natsuki Subaru, isn’t it? 

He’s found out several corpses too late that he never was the hero. 

And now, all he can do is stagger towards those three corpses, going on pure instinct alone, and methodically hide them away in the shadows. 

This is so cold. So _empty_. 

“I never ran.” He can’t breathe. “I’ve never… I’ve _never_ run away. I have the determination, the willpower, the _drive,_ when no one, _no one_ , in my place would’ve made it this far. Who but me would’ve been able to do all this? _Who?_ ” He can’t breathe. “I’ve lasted _this long_ even when the odds are stacked against me! I would never run away, I — I had to ignore it all just to keep going, I had to do it! If I destroy everyone who stands in my way, if I kill them all, then I’ll _finally_ _win_.”

A sane person would’ve given up a long, long time ago.

Because the feeling of cold flesh, crunching bone, flickering heartbeats; it’s engraved in him, no matter if he’s the perpetrator or not. 

This is what persevering has given him — the strength to do something as horrible as _this_ , and feel so utterly satisfied by doing so that he continues on, several, _several_ loops later with that same act. 

“We’ve damned ourselves,” the shadow of himself murmurs, mournfully. “And all that’s left is you.”

He can’t. He _can’t._ He freezes, he stiffens up, but then he chokes out a snarl, “I wish you were dead. I wish you never even _existed_.” 

A small, humorless smile stares back — mean eyes exactly like his mother crinkle at the corners, underneath bangs slicked back exactly like his father. 

“Sayonara... Subaru,” is the only reply he receives, soft and as tender as a bruise, before it crumbles to dust.

Repeat.

The sound of his heart pounding in his ears rises in a frantic crescendo — his strangled breathing is too loud, his countless failures are too loud, his own _thoughts_ are too loud, why won’t all this noise _shut up_ _and let him die for —_

He scrambles backwards, his hands slamming against his ears to just — shut everything out _._ Faintly, he registers himself falling, tipping to the side. His legs are all tangled up as he curls inward into a tight ball. He’s fucked everything up by breaking down _again_ , why is he caving now, why is he still so _weak_ after everything he’s been trying to accomplish, after everything he’s _done_ , why is he —

His voice echoes, delirious babbling spilling out from his mouth:

“Stop it, _stop it_ — I can’t take it anymore, I can’t, _I can’t_ , not again, please not again, I don’t — I don’t —“

The phantom grip of a hand softly, tenderly, strokes Subaru’s cheek, wiping away his tears. He leans into it with a whimper, starving for kindness and gentle warmth _so badly_ that he doesn’t think to question how. His thoughts become consumed with only wishes — wishes that this would last forever, wishes that this won’t leave him like everything else.

Then, a whisper shrouds him in a caress: “You did all this… to save me?”

“Yes.” He’s on the verge of begging for her to stay. Pleading for her to keep him company, even though this loop has already been doomed. “ _Yes._ Anything for you. _Anything for you._ ”

A quiet laugh rings in the air like chiming bells. She does not comment on his bloodied hands, or how his own blood running through his veins simmers with spite. “You’re such a dunderhead. Why would you go so far only for me?”

He seeks out more, more, more of her touch desperately, with glassy eyes and trembling lips. He’s laying on her lap now, he realizes, and his heart skips a beat.

“Who... who says ‘dunderhead’ in this day and age?”

Her hand reaches to pet his unruly hair as if in a fond, wordless reply. He snuggles closer to her, basks himself in this moment so that he can hold it close later — when… when it all starts again. 

He wishes that she could just save him. 

_Love him._

(He doesn’t deserve it.)

After a silence, her soft voice returns once more, “You’re really, really determined, you know that? It’s befitting of a knight, but… am I truly your reason for living? You’ve died so many times to save me already…”

Subaru’s stomach lurches suddenly. A hand rushes to cover his mouth as he squeezes his eyes shut. 

He wants to tease her like he used to back then; pull out that obnoxiously loud and energetic persona of his, spouting out as much charisma and charm as he could muster. 

Even though that was only a mimicry of his father, a pathetic attempt to follow in his footsteps and be worthy of being his son. Even though he, in all of his foolishness, has no one left to put on an act for. 

Except —

He’s still that same waste of space that Natsuki Subaru always was, and those truths have been filled into the cracks of his heart with each death.

No, that’s wrong, he’s still—

He wanted to be special so badly, didn’t he? That taste of death is what makes him special… isn’t it? But...

Subaru still hasn’t strengthened his resolve enough. He hasn’t hardened his weak heart enough. 

He shouldn’t be losing himself. He shouldn’t be losing himself _again_. 

His chest tightens as his thoughts cry out instead, _why, why, why, why, I tried, I tried so hard but — you aren’t —_

“ _Shh_ , it’s alright, Subaru,” she says sadly. “It’s been rough, hasn’t it? However…” She continues to run her hand through his hair — but he can hear the stricken note in her words, and the rising sense of grief and desolation along with it. “I just can’t understand why you’ve done this all for me. We’re only strangers, after all. You should have run away, far from here… why subject yourself to all this suffering? It — it pains me to know that you’re going through this for my sake.”

“Strangers,” he echoes, half out of delirium and half out of disbelief, “Run… away…”

He hears her give a small, stifled sob. The sensation of warm tears falls onto his cheek, right where she had wiped away his own sorrow. Despite that, her hand continues to run through his hair. “I — I never asked for you to do this for me. You claim that that’s your entire purpose in this world, to live and die for someone who only exists as an ideal in your mind… Why… why must you… I just can’t understand you.”

Subaru curls up tighter, pressing closer to her in a thinly veiled, deranged plea. “My feelings don’t matter,” he stammers, “My feelings don’t matter, only you. I made a promise to save you and I will, _I swear I will_. I’ve come too far to stop now. No matter how many times it’ll take, I — I’m trying my best! Because — because I love you!”

_Love me. Please love me. I want all of your love._

He can only imagine the look on her face now — would there only be more misery? Shock, at the confessions pouring out of him? Pity, after hearing his insane rambling while cuddling against her in his own sort of starvation?

He jerks violently — he can feel her shaking, almost pulling away from him, and something in him snaps back to vivid, horrid reality.

All of this started with _her_ , and it was just another cry for attention, another misguided attempt at being the savior of this situation. Did he just want to _win_ her, or the perfect version of her he built up in his head, this _thing_ that he needs to protect? Did he just want to take any shred of confidence or affection for himself, no matter the cost?

_He’s found out several corpses too late that he never was the hero._

_A slow death._

_Sayonara…_

And after he was ripped away from his parents, the only two people who loved him unconditionally — after he spent that first loop with her and fell down into crushing darkness, after he had lost _everything_ —

She was only his purpose… because of that.

Because he was so trapped and lost and scared that he just resorted to turning to the only rational thing he had left, diving headfirst into lofty ideals and egotism to cope with his newfound immortality.

Was… was that it? Was this all —

No, no, no, _no_.

He reaches out to _her_ and only grasps at empty air. He doesn’t want to open his eyes. He doesn’t want to see that this isn’t — 

Strangers. _Strangers_ . That’s all the two of them ever were — simultaneously everything and nothing at once. She doesn’t know him, and she won’t ever know him, and he likely won’t know her either any deeper than _she was nice to me, once upon a time._

No — _no,_ that’s not true, that can’t be true —

_Oh, but we haven’t felt love in forever._

His desperation finally breaks to the surface, his vocal cords scraped raw with all his shrieking and wailing: “You _can’t_ . You can’t — you can’t do this, don’t _leave_ , don’t do this to me! How could you? _How could you?_ You can’t just _leave me._ You did this to me, I gave you everything — _everything!_ I-I need you, no, _no,_ I—”

He reaches and reaches for her, and she remains distant except for vague vestiges; her arms ghost over his shoulders to envelop him in her fading warmth, her fingers brushing under his eyes, and he hears the bittersweet smile in her voice — 

“I’m ending this, Subaru.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He bites his tongue. 

  
  


The final nail in the coffin is that none of this ever stops hurting. 

Oh, Subaru’s been so torn up about it, you know? He’s cried and cried his lungs out until all he could think about was impending death, dreaming of comfort that can no longer reach him, and growing increasingly consumed by the sickness of despair. 

And truth be told, he’d been absolutely devastated when Satella abandoned him. Sinking his teeth into his tongue had come surprisingly easy with all his usual feverish desperation, and so did the blood pouring out of his mouth and the suffocation that followed. 

But Subaru wakes up, of course. 

He slams his fist into the wall, he bangs his head into the ground until the entire world spins. There’s screams clawing at his ribs and burning resentment in the pit of his stomach. He thinks that he sees a flash of silver hair, he thinks that he hears the chime of her voice, but she pulls away from him no matter how hard he tries to reach for her.

_Come back. Come. Back. Please. Please. You have to. Please —_

Only his own thoughts stay when nothing else has, curling around him like smoke itching at his throat. More pleas for love, more begging for death, more desperate plans to just kill, kill, _kill_ , because that’s all he can do, because he has nothing else to lose, because he can’t stop himself at this point. Not when it’s been the only thing pushing him forward when all he’s ever done is die.

And die.

And die.

It’s all going around and around in circles anyway. It’s not like anyone will even care when this’ll all be redone, when they’re always so insignificant in comparison.

He’s the one paying the price, always having those horrible experiences searing itself into his mind like a brand, always having to endlessly relive and retrace the same exact trauma, each loop bleeding into the next.

It’s the only thing that makes him special, after all. From the start, his only power has been to die and suffer. 

As many times as it takes to reach that optimal result.

So Subaru keeps digging his own grave until he’s gone so far below that there’s no saving him now. He accumulates more and more corpses, each piling on top of the other, and he lights each and every spark until his grave turns out to be a pyre instead, and the realization that he’s completely and utterly alone gnaws at him. 

It always has.

Time doesn’t feel real anymore. _He_ doesn’t feel real anymore, and —

She’s left him to die for her again, she’s left him to _rot_ . Death always, always hurts, and now she’s turned her back on him when he’s been sacrificing himself over and over again all for _her._

If anything, she _owes him_. How many times has he gone through this? How many times has he cried out for anyone to save him, how many times has he been maimed and smashed to pieces, how many times has he lost his mind wondering what fatal mistake he’s made for all of these loops? 

It makes him want to scream. It makes him want to tear out his own flesh and bone like paper.

If he could reach her now, he’d grasp her close in a death grip and never, ever let go. He’d tuck his chin into the curve of her neck, smile hard enough for his teeth to grind down to dust, and intimately confess every single one of his deepest thoughts: 

_Give all your love to me, give me everything, you owe me, you owe me, I’m the only one who knows what’s happening. The only one with the power to change anything. Me, me, and no one else. Just tell me I’m good, tell me you love me, love me, love me —_

It’s awfully selfish of him, really. But when has Natsuki Subaru ever been the hero he so desperately wanted to be? 

_Tell me I’m good._

_Tell me you love me._

_I can’t do this without you._

_Please._

To compensate, Subaru lets go of any and all feeling instead, carving away every bit of his insides until he’s hollow. 

Ever since he’s come to this world, he’s been shattered into pieces so many times that it’s become as familiar to him as his mutilated carcass. 

If only he let go of all the irrationality of his reckless, irritating, and emotional self sooner. If only he steeled himself much, much earlier to cast aside grief and sorrow, to spare himself that additional pain, to fully harness the sole thing that makes him special.

And if he really had wanted his parents to throw him away like the piece of garbage he was and is, he should’ve known that embracing this monstrous side of him would’ve severed any remaining ties forever.

All the way back to zero, and from there he’ll remake himself anew. 

So Subaru makes up for it now. He kills every single bit of himself that he can, everything that he’s hated oh-so-much. Suppressing the darkest thoughts of his mind only held him back. Attempting to focus on anyone besides Satella only distracted him from his real objective. 

He cuts away that momentary anger he’s directed at Satella, too. He knows that even though he’s always been wrong, saving her is still right, even if his methods would make her cry in the end. She’s absolutely perfect; why should he ever be mad at her? He’ll apologize for his sins by sacrificing everything and everyone for her. Past all the tears, she’ll be happy when all this is said and done.

His mind continues drifting away to her, after all, and he’s long since given up trying to stop himself. If this is what helps numb the pain, if this is what keeps him focused on what he needs to do for her, then so be it.

But truthfully, he can’t remember the last time he’s slept, or the last time he ate. 

That’s okay though. This body never shows the hideous scars he should have, or the injuries that should be all over him in a grotesque array. All of the physical evidence of that momentary pain or ugly human necessity is wiped away in an instant, and this body is good as new. 

And if he’s ever longed to share the sight of the constellations with a companion or two, longed to taste mayonnaise again or the food of this new world, longed to finally rest forever, longed to have a lighter heart and a beautiful paradise where nothing ever hurts, longed to wipe Satella’s tears away and be at her side as her dearest confidant — he’s freed himself from all of that hopeless longing for what will never be.

Besides. It would be very unnecessary to spare any time away from his goal anyway. 

The only thing Subaru really needs to do is die. 

And die. 

And —

Oh, it’s so, _so_ simple! This body of his may be extremely weak, but in getting rid of all those other annoying weaknesses, he’s finally become _stronger_. 

Without all those pesky emotions, he has infinite retries until the end of time to destroy everything in his way. No one will ever have to know. He’s finally done it, and now —

Now, he carries out this routine he’s established. He heads past all the faded splendor of this save point, and into the alleyway to draw tally marks for every loop. He’s learned to target Ton first to be more precise, more pragmatic, and then Chin next. He’s learned that —

A gurgled scream cuts through the air. Subaru sinks the stick further into Kan’s neck, a sick amusement rising inside of him at the sight. Kan’s hands scramble for purchase on the ground, his eyes blown wide with an animalistic terror, his legs jolting as if to run away. 

— so many of the others are far beneath Subaru. 

He can fail as many times as needed. He can die over and over again and he’ll still be back on his feet, this body returned to pristine condition, and their lives right in the palms of his hands. He’s unstoppable. He’s _invincible_ , if only in this one thing. 

Life and death and pain are practically child’s play, and he’s turned his doomed fate around to work towards getting exactly what he wants.

 _This_ is what truly makes him special. So much so that he can live and die indefinitely. So much so that reality bends with him, and everyone else is none the wiser in all their foolishness. He’s taking the only right path through the wrong actions, and not being able to taste death a final time has given him a single, crucial revelation:

Subaru hasn’t ever been able to rest forever, but that means that he’s important enough that he’s been prevented from dying for good. Without fail, he’s continued to return by death regardless, and he’s high on this immortality. 

Look at the undeniable proof that what he’s doing has _mattered._

The thugs, the everyday citizens of this country, even Elsa — they have nothing on this power of his. Once, he wished that he could just die and be done with this. Once, he wished that he could just forget this all just like them — this sea of bloodshed, the constant dead ends, his fracturing psyche — but oh, why would he stoop down to anyone else’s level? 

Fearing death and the pain it brings… the thought is so unfathomable that it makes him want to laugh. 

( _But I don’t want to be in the wrong, I wanted to be something_ more _, something_ better! _Please — please give me another choice than this! Why do I always have to —_ )

Subaru slams his heel down on Kan’s leg, smashing harder and harder until there’s spots dancing in front of his eyes, and the feeling of bone giving way underneath his foot. 

It used to be an awfully disgusting sensation — the distinct cracking noise it makes, the reminder of just how fragile the body can be, the realization that he’s the one dirtying himself here and being absolutely delighted by it.

But he quickly finds that it’s really like crushing a cockroach. 

It’s just a bit repulsive at first. Though the more you do it, the easier it gets. 

Oh, the amusement that Subaru can’t hold back did help in those earlier loops, when all he could do was spiral into more self-hatred. When all he could feel was rising bile in his throat. 

And yet the shame has died away. He’s bid a farewell to weakness, to awful truth, to any and all morals. It’ll eventually become as easy as breathing, as easy as dying soon; he’s figured out a routine for these loops now, and he’s learned that all those vestiges of horror and despair are best served as revenge. 

If anything, he should be proud of how far he’s come. He’s so close to finding his way, isn’t he? 

Subaru turns back to Kan with a sigh.

Kan’s eyes bulge at Subaru in his raw terror, trembling all over like a leaf. He’s still flinching and jerking as if he can just run away. As if he has a choice in this. 

How sad. How pathetic. How idiotic.

Subaru is the one in control here. Subaru is the one with that power — the power to return by death. He’s alone in this, but at least he’ll be alone at the top, as the victor, with Satella safe and alive and happy. 

Subaru kicks Kan aside as easily as a pebble, tilting his head slightly to give a pointed look at the corpses of Kan’s friends.

 _Don’t you see how easily I’ve destroyed you and your little gang_ , is what Subaru wants to say. _Don’t you see how sick and tired I am of having to even look at your hideous faces? Death doesn’t make it any prettier, you know._

Still, there’s that fog in his mind, and it threatens to drift him away. He’s so stuffed full of cotton that his vision’s blurring, his footsteps are stumbling. 

Is this complete and utter emptiness yet? Has he hollowed himself enough? Has he become detached enough to stop this from hurting? Or is this body simply being irritating again? 

But there’s a dizzying rush flowing through his veins too, and it says: _Why can’t you just stay. Dead._

So with that, he pretends that the stick in his hand is a knight’s sword, and plunges it into Kan’s neck. 

Guess the three of them do live up to their nickname. 

Honesty, are they truly people if they continue on repeatedly like a broken record? How much humanity is there when even the weakest of them are stronger than him, when they’ve been living and dying in this hellscape of a world and leaving him behind to rot?

He stares down at the remains coldly, distantly, before bending down to drag the corpses, as annoyingly heavy as they are, into their usual spot at the end of the alley. 

And yet, at the very least; these stern, scary eyes of his have that unmistakable truth to them now, and Subaru should be proud. 

He should be very, very proud. 

He’s finally found his worth, nestled in between life and death itself. Even if, at his core, Natsuki Subaru is a mangled mess of a boy with only _this_ holding him together.

Really, it’s awfully appealing. Even though the end result still remains the same, as he’s always distantly watching and feeling himself die, knowing that this body has never been completely his, he swears that he’ll emerge as the victor.

Detach. Detach. Detach. It’s easier to distance himself from reality. And if he can’t, he can kill his fraying self for good by —

Repeat.

It’s better to be amused. To find entertainment in even the goriest things. To find everything and nothing at all.

To drag everyone in this entire world down with him, tossing them all aside in favor of Satella.

Repeat.

However, it wouldn’t do to sacrifice others without a concrete, understandable reason for doing so. He has a far greater purpose now, he’ll tear apart the threads of fate and save —

Repeat.

Numb. He’s becoming even more numb and desensitized to all of this, and oddly enough, the realization makes him laugh and laugh and laugh as the knife sinks into his eye. 

He’s so close. He’s not lost. He’s not lost.

She doesn’t like the look on his face, Elsa says, as his laughs dissolve into hysterical half-shrieks. He’s gasping for air because this body still rejects a quiet death in some loops, stuttering breaths escaping from parted lips as he instinctively grabs at his gouged eye. Pupil dilated, vision blurring, blood staining his hands, strangled noises at the back of his throat. 

Burns. It burns. She should burn with him. Everyone should burn with him. The cold is gone, the cold has faded. This is all still for Satella. He can still sacrifice so much more for her. 

To love is to sacrifice.

He presses his hand to his eye, squeezing tighter and tighter until he can’t breathe, until his worthless gasps are stifled and his fingers stop twitching and gore oozes through the cracks. Why does this still hurt, when all of this is null and void to him now?

The knife slashes at his other eye, and the entire world is dyed red. 

Repeat.

With a squelching noise he’s grown used to hearing, his guts pour out onto the floor.

This must be why Elsa loves it so much, he thinks, calm and serene, as his hands brush against the tingling warmth of it. 

His hands are shaking. A dull groan of pain is the only sound that leaves him. 

Finally. His own shrill, unnecessary cries have grated on his ears for so long. 

Repeat.

 _The end justifies the means._ What a pretty notion — until you’ve come face to face with it, grappled with every cost it took, and accepted it as the truth, and nothing but that.

Repeat.

_No matter what, I’ll —_

He isn’t quite human anymore, is he?

Repeat. 

Bones fracture and snap under his heel. That, coupled with the sound of a muffled scream abruptly cutting out, satisfies him for the time being. 

He’s told himself this enough times, along with reliving it far more than he can count, but he still muses —

As usual, those death throes are so interesting to listen to. 

Though he has to laugh seeing it — he’s died enough times for the novelty to wear off. He’s killed them enough times for it to almost become boring. He’s gotten efficient, swift and ruthless in every calculated attack.

So what the hell are they complaining about?

Repeat.

How… how long has it been, from his perspective, since he arrived here? A day or two? A week? More than a week?

Hilarious. This feels as if it’s truly been an eternity already. 

Repeat.

There’s a corpse for every decision of his, isn’t there? What a shame.

Repeat.

You know, a sane person would’ve given up a long, long time ago.

That’s fine. He’s always been destined for this, ever since he emerged here.

Repeat.

He can’t remember if he was ever human. 

Yet, if he tries hard enough, he can picture his parents’ smiling faces, a bowl of peas being passed around the table, trophies and medals and stars, mayonnaise bottles, a lonely and closed off girl, and his namesake shining so bright in the night sky. 

But he never does. Why would he ever need it?

Repeat.

He’s already so far above everyone else, why would he want to belong when he already has his beloved, when he’s already proved to be far more deserving of praise after making it through all these loops fully intact? 

No one, _no one_ , could ever do what he has. He’s the one who’s survived, he’s the one who’s taken destiny in his own hands. Who else but him would’ve gone this far, who else would’ve been able to keep going? _Who else?_

Repeat.

_My name is Natsuki Subaru. Not only am I totally clueless, but I'm also completely broke beyond compare! Nice to meet you!_

What a poor impression. 

He can do _so much_ better than that.

Repeat.

Again and again. He’s got all this looping down to a schedule. Drawing tally marks, reminding himself of his promise, killing the three alley thugs, giving another go at Elsa; he’s practically going on autopilot at this point, like he’s being puppeteered to and fro. It’s a strange phenomenon, but none of this ever comes as a surprise anymore. 

Nothing does.

Repeat.

He’s close. He has to be. Even if it still distantly hurts, and hurts, and hurts, this body is not completely his to command. The shadow that gave him this power is responsible, as thankful as he is, but this body itself is a stranger regardless, right? It’s so easy to reach into his soul and only come back with nothing but frustration and resentment. 

Always taunting him. 

Repeat.

In each loop, he catches the sight of Satella running by. 

_Oh, my name? It’s… it’s Satella… No family name. So that's the way you may address me, alright?_

She’s still so painfully beautiful, so wonderfully perfect.

Repeat.

Only determination and love stay, a burning desire dancing underneath his skin, with every step he takes shining bright with purpose.

_No matter what, I’ll save you._

Repeat.

But what… what is he missing? He’s still _stuck_. There’s still the small part of him vaguely longing to just bash his head against the wall until his brain matter splatters, or smash himself against the concrete, or claw at himself enough to tear apart everything he’s ever hated. 

Just to forget it all. Just to feel some shred of comfort, despite how horrible it is.

He knows this from experience: pain floods and overwhelms your mind until it’s all you can think about, until that very thought remakes you into a near empty shell. And he doesn’t need to think too hard about this, really. 

All he needs to do is keep trying every single method he can until Satella is free. The various injuries and deaths he accumulates along the way are already enough; it would be rather extraneous to waste time on any more self-mutilation.

Repeat.

By the final ending of this story, he’ll be broken into thousands upon thousands of lifetimes. He doesn’t think he ever planned to be whole once this is all over with.

How much of Natsuki Subaru is left, anyway?

Repeat.

Shut up. _Shut up._

It doesn’t matter. He could care less.

Return by death isn’t a curse, he reminds himself. It’s a gift. A blessing. It makes this body of his a tool. And it’s all _his_ for the taking. 

Repeat.

 _I couldn’t save you like you saved me,_ he hears, a mimicry of Satella, or perhaps even Satella herself, in the darkness of that void between deaths. _I’m sorry, my love._

For the first time in a while, he wants to scream. And with that, lies what remains of his guilt.

Repeat.

Guilt? What guilt? 

He has no need for it. 

Repeat.

“Aren’t you scared,” a voice he despises rasps into his ears. “Aren’t you terrified?”

“No,” he spits out. The bones of a hand crunch underneath his foot as he wipes away the blood on his face. A pity, to ruin corpses even further like this. A pity, to have to repeat this to himself again. “I’ve never been afraid of anything.”

When he turns away, that hand is so utterly mangled and shattered that it’s near unrecognizable. 

His teeth scrape his tongue.

Repeat.

_She was in such a hurry to find what was stolen from her, yet she stopped to help me. She even came up with that lame excuse for a favor, even though I'm a total stranger. Anyone who lives like that… is just gonna end up wasting their whole life!_

  
  


_It doesn't hurt to do more than one nice thing in a day, does it? I just got tomorrow's out of the way. My plan is to get a week's worth of good deeds taken care of early!_

_Then if I were to guess, you're the type that basically wastes their whole life, right?_

_Seriously? You're the last person who should be saying that to anyone._

  
  


Isn’t… the entire world in his hands?

What a beautiful thought… to believe that you matter more than you truly do.

  
  
  


Repeat.

  
  
  
  


Ah. This whole “summoned to a parallel world” thing’s rougher than he thought it'd be. 

With a stick in his hand, he draws tally marks into the ground, and then erases them with his foot. Exhaustion eats at him, but he ignores it to glance at the usual traffic of these all-too familiar streets.

As human as he is, he’s the alien here, even if he compares himself to all the lizard people and the dragon-like creatures pulling carriages — because they belong here, unlike him. 

The one who doesn’t belong in this world, the one who isn’t loved by this world, is _him._

His eyes are blank, hollow, and dead, though within them, shines that remnant of distaste. The thugs even comment on his disarming behavior, for perhaps the tenth time, before — well. The usual occurrence happens.

Ton is impaled through the throat, and then toppled over by just one jab of Subaru’s knee, the stick digging further into his neck. Chin is grabbed by the hair and smashed against the wall. Kan idiotically fails to run away, despite having numerous chances to do so, and is rewarded with strangulation, spit and tears and blood running down his face. 

How utterly disgusting.

“Now, do you realize how many times I’ve met you guys total?” Subaru says flatly, rolling his eyes. Kan grasps at Subaru’s hands desperately, sucking in breath after useless breath. “Eighty-eight.” 

Approximately, assuming his memory and time and his little tally mark habit aren’t completely failing him. 

“Nice to see that’s always increasing,” he continues with a small, crooked smile. “You’re meant to laugh.”

Subaru, of course, drops Kan to the ground once he goes limp. Then, Subaru stomps on each of their necks for good measure — just to finish his usual routine, just to feel a bit more pleasure than just nothing at all. 

Even if his skin crawls remembering the sensation of his hands around Kan’s neck.

_We’ve damned ourselves, and all that’s left is you._

“Wasn’t smart to strangle him,” he mutters to himself, dragging each and every corpse to the end of the alley. “Feels gross too. Won’t do it again.”

At least the sickly smell of corpses merging with the tang of blood is something that he’s already become used to.

This process always takes a bit of luck, though there are always variances from loop to loop. Luckily, he killed the thugs in this loop in only less than a minute. 

A new record, he supposes, as he steals those same knives from Chin. 

Just in time. 

He leans against the wall, searching through the cacophony of the crowd. And once the people part way for the fight occurring on the lane, his breath catches at that familiar sight. 

The entire world stops at that moment.

Satella chases after Felt. The latter hollers out a mischievous laugh as she dodges a shimmering ice spear, while the former can only shout after her and the insignia in her hands.

He shoves aside his disdain for Felt to stare at _her._

A soft voice like a bell as silver as the hair cascading down her back, her own strength shining in her amethyst eyes, and the fantastical attire she wears only adding to her beauty.

In contrast, there’s an emptiness in him that he just can’t shake, an apathy that he’d much rather not do without. 

But that same sight that he saw while beaten down to a bloody pulp on his first loop in this world, and that same girl that he exchanged such lovely conversation with — is worth all this.

Oh, what he’d give to hear his name on her lips.

“No matter what,” he murmurs, repeating his promise for the eighty-eighth time, “I’ll save you.”

Those same pretty words, so lofty, so damning, only come from someone who has almost proved to be all talk. Even atop a mountain of corpses, he feels absolutely nothing except for —

“Wait for me, Satella.”

 _I’m sorry,_ he does not say.

Once past the initial turmoil of Return by Death, he can finally use himself and the others as the tools they were meant to be.

But there’s only one thing left to do, he supposes. He’s tried everything he could, although he has trouble remembering most of them. 

He’s really held off on this strategy for a while. 

Subaru thought then that he wasn’t someone worth helping, that no one would listen to his pleas. That it would be pointless to even bother. 

So what does it matter now, when all this looping has painfully proved that he’s incapable of defeating Elsa alone? 

Thus, he does what his old self could not do: he leaves an anonymous tip for the guards. 

He does not count it as a call for help.

Another failure.

Bathed in blood, Elsa slices through body after body, as ecstatic and sensual as the vampires that she remains so reminiscent of. Each and every one of the guards lay dead at her feet, killed so easily as if they were insects, scattered all throughout the slums.

And from a nearby rooftop, Subaru’s eyes narrow with pity and disappointment. 

To try so hard, and to die so quickly and pointlessly like this… it seems that his hopes were too high. 

With the distant, near nonexistent shame he feels, comes that simmering resentment. Elsa is stronger on a different level than even the guards of this city, of course she is, while Subaru himself just sacrificed those guards as lambs to the slaughter. 

No matter. The guards will be alive and well again in the next loop. They won’t be sacrificed again. At least for a while.

He starts to turn away, only to freeze as a new sort of challenger approaches Elsa. 

A young man with hair so red that he thought that he saw a pillar of fire instead, alongside a lean yet muscular frame underneath white regalia, beautiful and just and _everything_ that Subaru is not. 

_Sir Reinhard!_

_Reinhard van Astrea, from the Sword Saint bloodline._ _How wonderful, how excellent!_

Reinhard’s eyes are a brilliant blue amidst the red of his hair and the red of the blood scattered about around them. Downcast and lamenting every pointless death, they then rise to meet Elsa with only duty and responsibility. The sword at his waist, bigger and grander than what is likely customary, only sings of this duty as well.

Until he turns to the guard beside him, asking for a sword, and explains to Elsa that the sword on his hip — the supposed _Dragonblade_ — does not deem her an opponent worthy of unsheathing to fight and slay her.

No… that can’t be right. That isn’t…

How could he? _How?_

Reinhard even tells Elsa to surrender beforehand, far too kind for the monster that Elsa is. But Elsa, as expected, does not back down, meeting eye to eye with only the willpower to see that the other is slain at their hands. 

_Stop._

_Stop it._

They announce their names and titles. Then, they charge in and —

With one small slash from Reinhard, this entire section of the slums decimated with one massive explosion of light, shockwaves expanding the damage through each and every building until only rubble is left. 

The very definition of power.

How… _how_ did he —

A strangled gasp escapes from Subaru’s lips as he stares, wide-eyed, at the destruction. 

He can't breathe. He can’t _breathe_ , and a searing pressure builds up in his chest until a pathetic whimper leaves him. There’s a wetness on his cheeks too — god, he thought that he’s swallowed back all of his tears, thought that he’s grown away from the Subaru that constantly wept and pleaded like the child he was. 

So why… why is he crying now? 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Oh. _Oh._

He can kill and maim three small lives countless times, and he can wield the power of Return by Death, and yet — this, this _Reinhard_ , enters center stage out of sheer chance and —

Eighty-eight loops of life and death and memory had made everything lose all meaning. Eighty-seven deaths had proved Elsa to be disgustingly invincible and unbeatable every single time. Subaru had tried again and again, endlessly, fruitlessly, and nothing, _nothing_ , worked. 

Until Reinhard took only one shot to defeat Elsa. With all the showmanship and confidence of a righteous hero assured by the power gifted to him since birth, he did what Subaru never could so, so _effortlessly_. 

He didn’t even _unsheathe his sword._

The sobs stifling the air in Subaru’s lungs hitch with a small laugh. 

God, _god,_ this had to be some sick, twisted joke. All of his efforts were proved to be meaningless by a single person who happened to be adored by this world. What did Reinhard van Astrea do to deserve such a benevolent treatment? What did he do to receive the power that Subaru could’ve used to escape this hell and fulfill his promise?

And yet… if Subaru had called the guards sooner for that chance for Reinhard to be present to defeat Elsa, he wouldn’t be kneeling on this rooftop right now, choking on his own cries and despair. He wouldn’t have had to suffer for so long, alone and afraid, if only he had swallowed his pride sooner, and confessed that he couldn’t just defeat Elsa by throwing himself at her again and again. 

There’s only himself to blame for everything he’s been through. 

Just how many times has he begged for someone, anyone, to tell him what was keeping him from getting out of this hell? All along, that pain’s all of his own making! It’s all for _nothing_ because he waited eighty-eight loops to call the guards, and then Reinhard comes along and steals the victory from him without even _trying_ —

Ha. _Ha._

When no one saved him, Subaru saved _himself_. 

He didn’t _need_ anyone else.

His struggles had meaning. Everything he’s been through wasn’t for nothing. The one at fault here can’t be him. It can’t be him. Not completely.

It isn’t his fault. 

_It isn’t his fault._

In the end, he’d long since succumbed to the truth of his purpose here: that his pure, idealistic wish to save Satella is his entire reason for living and dying, and this won’t change, no matter how much his mind shatters. 

His love for her has always been his hope.

His drive.

And as much Subaru loathes to admit it, Reinhard had given him an escape out of the stalemate with Elsa. 

The opportunity to continue with his purpose. 

Because he’s… he’s _free_.

Subaru’s hands, shaking and wishing to claw at his skin, curl into fists. 

(But now that he’s out of this loop, what else does he have left? What else is he supposed to do? What does he do? What does he do? _What does he_ —)

He has to follow Satella and keep her safe. He needs to be the one to watch over her. He _needs_ to — he’s forgotten everything other than overwhelming hatred, spiraling determination, and pouring all of his crazed devotion onto Satella like sweet nothings. 

But here’s one more truth: if Subaru had Reinhard’s power, then he would have crushed Elsa himself like an insect under his heel. He would have fulfilled his promise to Satella far more quickly, without those horrid memories plaguing his every move, and he would have had the chance to grow closer to her like in those desperate daydreams of his. 

And with that, Subaru mutters that name under his breath, repeats it in his head like a broken record. A sense of resentful longing presses against his frantically beating heart — 

_Reinhard van Astrea, the Sword Saint..._ oh, his strength and ideals and justice and _stupid_ heroics were so revolting. 

Oh, if only Subaru was as blessed as Reinhard, who wasn’t even human with that power of his. Any sane person would’ve been corrupted by those very same abilities, after all. No worries of dying, no worries of being sliced open and gutted like a fish and torn apart, no worries of being unable to save everyone — oh, how wonderful it must be to be him. What, was he far too good for the rest of them? Did he have to soar above everyone else like he was some sort of god?

God... That’s a funny thought. If there is a god out there, Subaru would love to scream to the heavens about how much all of this proved to be a nightmare.

Roughly, Subaru wipes away his tears and staggers to his feet. He grits his teeth, picks up the ever-present ruins of his trembling brain, and gathers up his own inhuman resolve. With his hatred still churning in the pit of his stomach, he tries to smother it with another vow —

When the time comes, he’ll destroy Reinhard. Utterly, wholly, thoroughly, intimately. In every way he’s been destroyed. Always, _always_ , from the inside out. 

Then, after she outlives her use, he’ll finish off Elsa like he’s always wanted to.

A kind of karmic retribution, really.

It doesn’t matter if any of this is all _wrong_ — Subaru can’t bring forth any goodness at all anymore. 

These loops have stolen everything from him, eroded him down to the bone, created him anew with poorly stitched pieces of deranged willpower and desperate purpose. Now, he has plenty of viciousness to spare, and he can’t bring himself to care about costs and consequences. 

Because he never really mattered in the first place. Oh, he could care less about mutilating himself in any way, shape, or form. 

And no one else ever mattered either.

Except for Satella. 

This was _always_ about Satella. 

Eighty-seven deaths, eighty-eight loops counting, and one fatal mistake born out of hubris; all of it is and was for her. 

He laughs, laughs, laughs. His shoulders tremble and his chest aches and there’s far too many things wrong with him, but he knows that he’ll only continue to be wrong for the rest of his endless lives.

He thinks deliriously, _So you found a new you._

_Congratulations!_

_Happy birthday, Subaru!_

He supposes that the blood that’ll grow on his hands will be his confetti. That the white-hot pain of the next loops will be his birthday candles, and Satella will be the match. 

( _If only I could be Reinhard_ , a small part of him still whimpers, childishly, _I want to be good. I wanted to be good. I wish I was good like him. I wish I was good. I wish this never happened. I want to go home. I want to die. I want this to end. What am I supposed to do now —)_

Shut up. Shut up, shut up, _shut up._

Subaru knows _exactly_ what he needs to do now. 

He always knew. He just backed out like the coward he used to be, even if he tried so hard to throw all that weakness away. 

_No matter what —_ that’s what he’s always said since the beginning. Now, he’s grown and changed for the better, and that weak Natsuki Subaru is dead and gone. Now, he’s ready to take control of the very definition of that mantra, and seize his destiny with his bare hands and strangle it himself. 

Even if it’s a sickening and disgusting thing.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> credit to witchculttranslations, S1 of the anime, and Tappei ofc for some of the lines/moments I've used/referenced. if u wanna skip my rambling about behind the scenes type stuff u can go to the last paragraph at the bottom of this AN lol
> 
> anyway, gosh i did not expect this fic to be this long (like,,, is this novella length at this point?? holy shit??) and it’s been literal months in the making along with other WIPs. but you could also say i'm just proud (hA) of this fic? idk i just had a lot of fun with it even tho it was a lot of work (and even tho I’m a bitttt of a perfectionist), plus there are a bunch of lines that i like. for example when i wrote that cockroach line i had to step back from my computer and take a deep breath bc oh boy i actually scared myself writing that. it's kinda funny how i freaked myself out with lines like that lol. on the other hand tho, i also kinda don't know how to feel about this fic but i did try my best so i guess there's that.
> 
> so when I was reading through the Pride If again and analyzing it while outlining and starting to write this, my goal was to humanize pridebaru more in a sense and just explore his character in general. And while pridebaru really is a horrible person (and pls know that I'm not condoning his actions here nor am I suggesting that all mentally ill people are violent!), the more I thought and wrote about his situation in the first 88 loops the more it made sense that he turned out that way. Like i think the gravity of his situation of these first loops in pride if canon didn’t fully hit me until writing this fic. i really wanted to answer the question of how subaru, a normal teenager with well his own issues but a normal teenager all the same, goes from that into well. a murderer? which really saddened me to explore bc i relate to him a lot haha
> 
> plus we kinda forget how horrible the first two arcs were for subaru bc the later arcs knock it out of the park lol. I mean it was the perfect cocktail for insanity, but uh. I’ll let the fic speak for itself on that part. i will say that my other fic "i wish i'd been like you" does have a few itty bitty references to this one, since i wrote that one when i was nearly finished with "ashes". if anyone would like to hear more of my thoughts while writing this, feel free to ask i guess? haha
> 
> lastly, i'd like to thank everyone who supported me with my other fics ofc. along with the people who's works were partly inspired by "no more dreaming" (Scissors and writersBlockSPF555 - pls check their fics out!). it really meant a lot to me and gave me the motivation to keep writing fic for this fandom (my uh one million WIPs aside) and seriously. it made me so happy i teared up haha. of course i'd love to hear your thoughts on this fic if you have any! I know it was a super long one so thank you so much for reading :D


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